cogito multidisciplinary research journal

Cogito – REVISTĂ DE CERCETARE ŞTIINŢIFICĂ PLURIDISCIPLINARĂ 1

Cogito

MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH JOURNAL

Vol. VIII, no. 2/June, 2016

Bucharest, 2015 ISSN 2068-6706

Vol. VIII, nr. 2/June, 2016 2

Cogito Journal is published under the aegis of “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University

Address: 176 Splaiul Unirii, Bucharest Phone: 021.330.79.00, 021.330.79.11, 021.330.79.14 Fax: 021.330.87.74 E-mail: [email protected]

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Cogito

MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH JOURNAL

Vol. VIII, no. 2/June, 2016


Every author is responsible for the originality of the article and that the text was not published previously.


CONTENTS

EMINESCU AND THE ROMANIAN SPIRITUALITY EMINESCU – IN THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE OF 1990 .............................................................................................. 7

Lucian Chişu THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE POLITICAL AND THE ECONOMIC IN MIHAI EMINESCU’S CONCEPTION ......................... 16

Grigore Georgiu EMINESCU ON THE PATHOLOGY OF PUBLIC MOEURS AND THE THEORY OF COMPENSATION ................................................. 23

Vasile Macoviciuc INTERETHNIC AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN THE RUSSIAN VERSIONS OF EMINESCU'S POEM "LUCEAFĂRUL" ................................................................................ 31

Miroslava Metleaeva (Luchianciacova) IS THERE A TIME OF HAPPINESS IN EMINESCU’S THINKING? .... 40

Gabriela Pohoaţă

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY THEOLOGICAL REVISIONISM: FROM GOD TO MAXIMAL GOD .... 49

Majid Amini TRINITARIAN TRANSCENDENCE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES IN ST. AUGUSTINE ............................................................................... 56

Mihai D. Vasile FOUCAULT'S PERSPECTIVE ON ,,THE CARE OF THE SELF” IN CHRISTIANITY AND THE LACK OF SOME CENTRAL ELEMENTS - THE FACE AND THE SACRAMENT ............................. 68

Georgiana Moise


PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE THEORY OF CONCEPT HOLES ........................................................ 76

Adrian Lesenciuc, Cosmina-Oana Roman

POLITICAL SCIENCES AND ECONOMICS JACQUES RANCIÈRE – FOR LOVE OF DEMOCRACY ...................... 84

Viorella Manolache HOW DEEP IS THE EUROPEAN CRISIS? ........................................ 91

Marian Popa THE MIGRATORY MOVEMENT OF THE POPULATION AND THE LABOUR FORCE IN THE ROMANIAN RURAL AREA ..................... 104

Florentina Burlacu


EEMMIINNEESSCCUU –– IINN TTHHEE SSOOCCIIAALL AANNDD CCUULLTTUURRAALL AATTMMOOSSPPHHEERREE OOFF 11999900

LLuucciiaann CChhiişşuu

[email protected]

Abstract: This article presents a few most significant interventions from

the media of 1990 regarding Eminescu and his creation. In spite of the fact that the poet had died a century before and some tendentious interpretation of his work had been thoroughly amended, the public “atmosphere” and the tensions generated in the society reabsorb him, projecting him in the middle of a real “cyclone”, unforeseeable by manifestations or consequences. On the background of two years full of homage meanings (1989-1990), the interest in studies referring to Eminescu seems dominated by the prevalence of Eminescianism, a term that has not been established semantically yet, which indicates the orientation of the debates on the poet, from the sphere of philology to that of the “state of mind”, which differs from a soul to another.

Keywords: Eminescu, revolution, democracy, values, principles,

challenging, change, controversy. I. In December 1989, when in Romania had occurred the direction change of

the compass needles in all the domains, from the private existence to the political, economic life and up to the culture or society, this fact did not seem to affect the "image" of Eminescu. On the contrary, swept away by consensual democracy the poet was considered a Revolution adept, exhortations and lyrics of his own creation being touted in the middle of crowds. Immediately after coming out from the burden of communism, his "freedom" of expression knows an higher current and amplitude. This detail, that two consecutive years had been organized events dedicated to the centenary of the poet's death and the celebration of 140 years from his birth also should not be ignored.

As is well known, the events that have passed open the gates of our long-awaited democracy, especially those in the early post-Communist years, took the turn of uncontrolled deployments of forces, beeing like the atmospheric cyclones, during which air masses are intertwined quickly, triggering huge downloads of energy, unpredictable and dangerous.

Only after their effects cease a proper assessment of the situation can be made, a realistic one. Reabsorbed by this phenomenon, the poet never escaped - a defining expression for those times - the general tussle in which had been coached Romanian society. It was a sign that the few undefiled values, would have required also a reassessment?

Professor PhD., History Institute and Literary Theory “George Călinescu” -

Romanian Academy.


II. In connection with the above statements, we note by the literary-historical data what was happened with the Eminescu’s legacy, shortly after 1989. Fixing them on the perimeter of 1990 takes into account both festive background - a century and a half after the poet’s birth – and also some accents that contributed to the “strokes” theme and color of this painting. Obviously, our presentation is not intended for completeness, but the inputs are able to be representative.

II. A. Strictly statistically1, in 1990 Eminescu's work consisting of poetry, prose and journalism knows nine editions, to which is added six other foreign languages. At the same time nineteen books of Eminescu’s interpretation are appearing with new titles and the most various2.

The literary magazines, the mainstream cultural media, publish him full or fragmentary poems banned and also passages from the texts that had been censored nearly five decades, mostly articles about Besarabia and Bucovina.

Eminescu’s aphorism, in all its genres approaches (philosophy, literature, history, Greek-Roman classicism, folklore, Indian studies, law, science, etc.) are copiously extracted from the opera3, presences of this kind being heavily represented in periodicals.

1 Statistical data were highlighted from M. Eminescu, “Opere”, XVII, References. “Life-

Opera”. References. Part I (1866-1938), Romanian Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1999; Part II. (1939-1989), Eminescu's work-editions and periodicals, M. Eminescu references in books. Romanian Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 2008; Mihai Eminescu the electronic version. annotated Bibliography (1990-2005), http://www.biblacad. ro. EminescuFinalAd.pdf

2 Stefan Badea, The significance of Eminescu’s proper name. Bucharest, “Albatros”, 1990; Noemi Bomher, Eminescu’s Myth and mythology. Iasi, University Publishing House “Al. I. Cuza”, 1990; Ioana Bot, Eminescu and the Romanian poetry today. Eminescu’s Quote in Romanian contemporary poetry. Cluj-Napoca, “Dacia”, 1990; Gheorghe Ciompec, Eminescu. Eminescu’s Text. Anthology, introduction, notes, timeline of Gh. Ciompec. Bucharest, Eminescu, 1983-1990; Constantin Ciopraga, Eminescu's poetry. Fundamental archetypes and metaphors. Iasi, “Junimea”, 1990; Victor Crăciun, Eminescu. A century of immortality. Album composed by ... Introductory study [by] Al. Piru. Vol. I-II. (Vol. I: The poet's life; vol. II: The poet’s posterity, Bucharest, “Minerva”, 1990-1991; Cristian Livescu, Eminescu the first. Piatra Neamt, “Crigarux”, 1990; Eugen Lungu, Poets from the time of Eminescu. Chisinău, “Literatura Artistică”, 1990; Gheorghe Mazilu, Reading of Eminescu. Chisinău, “Hyperion”, 1990; Ion Mitican, With Mihai Eminescu and Ion Creangă in Iasi Fair. A sentimental Itinerary. Bucharest, Tourism Publishing house, 1990; Marina Mureșanu Ionescu, Eminescu and the romantic intertext. Iasi, “Junimea”, 1990; Petru Rezuș, An unpaired childhood. Bucharest: Ion Creangă Publishing house 1990; XXX: Eminescu and Brasov. Coordinator Ion Itu. Brasov, Editorial Centre „Coresi”, 1990. Worthy of note are also the translations: Rosa del Conte, Eminescu or about the Absolute. Edited, translated and prefaced by Marian Papahagi. Foreword by Zoe Dumitrescu-Busulenga. Afterword by Mircea Eliade. With one word by Romanian edition by Rosa Del Conte. Cluj, “Dacia”, 1990; XXX: Eminescu and the European romanticism. Marin Mincu and Sauro Albisani. Roma, “Bulzoni’’, 1990.

3 See, in this regard, the publications „Adevărul de duminică” [Bucharest], „Ateneu”, „Arges ”, “Cronica”, „Jurnalul literar”, “Lumină Lină/Gracious Light” [New York], „Manuscriptum”, “Măiastra-Dialog” [Baia Mare], “Minerva” [Bistrit a], “Orizont”, „Ramuri”, „Revista V” [Focsani], “Sud” [Călăras i], „Timpul” [Ias i], “Tribuna”, “Unu” [Oradea] ș.a. Most of meditations appear in the “Timpul” and “Adevarul de Duminica,” many of the aphorisms quotes being found in other publications in the following years.


Well known, his poem Doina4 is printed five times in the first year of post-communist, and 58 of his "meditations" excerpted, the largest in publishing from the „Timpul”, flanking the front page almost unanimously in older and tradition, publications, or recently published. Also, the large number of interpretation in foreign languages explains the enormous interest for eminescian lyrical universe knowledge, spread through the Romanian and foreigners translators the poet creation was manifested in areas including old or rare language (Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Japanese). The references and the articles that were starring in the spotlight were not few, but all tens, spread in areas of cultural references like semantics, stylistics, mythology and so on. Anyway, knowledge biography contributions (texts homage, evocation, characterization, articles written around the Eminescu’s cult) provides a succinct picture in which summed only for 1990, 383 texts, which denotes the place that it occupies Eminescu in our daily life.

II.B. If statistics can provide general regarding painting canvas, scrolling calendar of the same year delivers, this time punctually, information on the topics, approaches, themes, and also engagements and name significance and Eminescu's work involvements in the debates that stirred the social life of Romania in a quarter century ago. The day before January 15, Stefan Aug. Doinaş and Dan C. Mihailescu wrote in „România literară”, the first one about the Eminescu’s model, the second one, showing that during the communist regime years "Eminescu’s doctrinaire" had been cultivated in the detriment of the poet. At that time, but in the street, poet effigy was resorbed in front of the building of the former Central Committee.

Tensioned events of January 1990 were comented, among others, by the eighties writer and essayist Mircea Nedelciu: „At the time I write this is almoust daylight. Is 15 of January 1990 and I'm afraid. What kind of mass will form today to the Eminescu's statue in front of the Athenaeum? In front of its national symbol of culture, my people will understand how much culture is lacking now and that it has to be regain first?”5.

As it was natural, in the day of his foredoome destiny, it takes place under the dome of the Romanian Athenaeum, the tribute show dedicated to the 140th anniversary of Mihai Eminescu.

Among the speakers were found Andrei Plesu, Minister of Culture, Ana Blandiana, Stephen Aug. Doinaş, Dan Hăulică, Petru Cretia and Nicolae Dabija, which have been added, with a recital of poetry, the actors Victor Rebenciuc, Mariana Buruiană, Leopoldina Bălănuţă, Valeria Seciu, Ion Caramitru.

Also to this celebration of 15 January are circumscribed a series of articles published by the student magazine "Echinox"6, which although had published a

4 „Cronica”, Iasi, no. 2, Jan. 12nd, p. 1; „Timpul”, Iasi, no. 1, Jan. 13th, p. 8; „Sud”, Călărasi,

no. 2, Jan., p. 2; „Unu”, Oradea, no. March 1st, p. 1; „Radix”, Mornimont, no. 16, Sept.- Oct., p. 3. 5 The funeral map, by Mircea Nedelciu, in SLAT Literary artistic Supplement of the Free

Youth, February 3rd, 1990. 6 „Echinox” (no. 1-2/1990), Homage opens with the interview with Ioana Em. Petrescu How

could we separate him without forget ourselves and continues through comments of Ioana Bot to the interviewee volume, Eminescu and Romanian poetry mutations. In the same context, Laura Paul writes about The Eminescu’s urban universe like surreality. Under a easily redundant title The memory - access way to the poetic revery. Liliana Borcea reveals initiatory thread through the


first number in 1990, restarts, in conditions of freedom, no. 1-2 / 1990. Here, Ion Muresan, poet of the eighties generation, answer to his own dilemmas: „Eminescu postponed the textualism here with about 50 years. I do not know what decision would have taken the poet if he knew this. Some would be willing to suppose that he would be postponed "Centenary"7.

Two days later, in "Romania Libera"8, the attention is drawn to the appearance of the Tenth volume of journalism, from the academic edition.

Author of the article, Mircea Martin, critic and theorist believes that "unfortunately, in these times we can not yet talk about Eminescu and his work as about a strictly literary theme: much less about his publising, not only because it was one of prevailing politics, but because - for this reason - on its publication date have encumbered political considerations. The monumental edition itself initiated by Perpessicius was affected in this way." X incriminating Volume from Opera it becomes an opportunity for dialogue also in "Tineretul liber"9. where the continuer of the edition Perpessicius, Dimitrie Vatamaniuc, states that volume printing drew nearly a decade „because of some "thorny" problems in Eminescu’s Articles, on which we had long discussions with officials, such as those relating to politics of the Liberal government, the country's budget to education, to justice, etc, items whose reading, still today, a century after his death, it sounds pretty current. "

In the matter of editing of Eminescu’s publishing it pronounce Al. Dobrescu10, who comment on the interview given by Moses Rosen to the magazine "Tribuna" (no. 6/1990), resuming thorny discussions that symptomatic recurring.

The subject remains one of the most sensitive in approach and interpretation, since it does not take into account that Eminescu aimed at the social and historical realities of his days, so the other social and political context - essentially different from the present one. During May, Constantin Coroiu11 draws attention to "the action of demolition" of "our cultural values," the name cited as those of Arghezi, Sadoveanu, Călinescu, Zaharia Stancu and others, even of Eminescu, writers discussed again "on narrow party positions," thus reviving "practices of the 50s". At the same time (in a calendaristic way) Eminescu is taken up by other players in the political media12. About Eminescu’s political publishing versus the contemporary one, writes George Tomozei13 on June 15: "All the velleities so loudly asserted fade when we evoke him that it is not just an intangible ideal, but a fighter visionary, an creator of opinion. The journalistic

labyrinth of Eminescu's poetic universe. About Archeus – The nature of the story like gnosiological scheme writes Carmen Negulici.

7 Ion Mureșan, Notes to an impossible breakup with Eminescu, in „Echinox”, no.1-2/1990. 8 Mircea Martin, Visionary Publishing, in „Free Romania”, January 17th 1990. 9 „Tineretul liber”, Jan. 20th, 1990, interwew realized by Nicolae Ţone. 10 „Convorbiri literare” no. 5 (March 22nd), 1990. 11 „Adevărul”, May 25th, 1990, in the article Literary and political values. 12 „România Mare”, no. 1, June 8th, starts under the motto We will be again what we were

and moreover! Among other activities is established and award a Grand Prize "Mihai Eminescu" for literature and Grand Prix "Nicolae Iorga" for historiographic field.

13 The consensus of Eminescu, in „Adevărul”, June 15th, 1990.


prose of the poet becomes current. (...) Him beeing brought by fate to the forefront officious paper the most powerful party of the time, him did not blindly served the party politics but rather can always say that, inflexible, and had illustrated his own ideas. He asked nothing more than the amount (rarely paid) for that he had been hired. He refused to get into the powerful party. He did not candidate (not even as independent) for high state governors. He refused decorations. «Party» of Eminescu confuse exclusively with the man Eminescu, quickly shot down by the suffering and death and should not see in Eminescu a defeated "in the business", he said, but the one that is a forever-winner."

The second moment of homage is overshadowed by the events of 1990 "miners" 13-15 of June. On the first page of the "Tineretului liber - literary and artistic supplement" [SLAT] Dan Stanca note: "We are sorry that in these moments when you should think about Eminescu, violence devastates the Romanian soul."14

Eminescu’s Article Honor, wisdom and energy 15[Cinstea, intelepciunea si nergia] dated August 3, 1888, is reproduced in "Romania Libera" because it contains obvious allusions to events conducted in June 1990. Sorin Preda returns to the subject in a number later of "SLAT"16, "It should have be celebrated Eminescu these days. We had this moral duty to his memory. It was not to be so. Over the years we have repeated menacing and obsessive, the same sentence: "is not the time." In the feasts calendar of our nation it only remained two important dates: his and hers. For Eminescu was not the time either in 1989 nor in January '90. Politics and ephemeral event of the day obtained a new brilliant victory on literature! (...)

In Romania it seems that the disputes, words, hate and even violence suffer of unconsciousness. It is outrageous to worship rushed to Eminescu, Trumpeting with exhortations to retaliation and intolerance. What happened in these days on the streets more or less convoluted political of Bucharest should give seriously thought. Basicallywe were unable to celebrate Eminescu celebrate as we wanted and hoped for so long.

There where people die and hundreds of people are mistreated, where incendiary bottles explodes and intellectuals are treated as common criminals, the poetry has no place. A heavy shame and powerless is descending now upon all of us. (...) The gregarious attack blemish the memory of the Poet. Returning from the social area, we find The complex of Eminescu’s posterity [Complexul posteritatii eminesciene], of the independent weekly "Phoenix"17 an inquiry about the Eminescu’s actuality. When I asked "Do you think still that we (you) are missing something vital from the image of Eminescu?", Answers: Mihai Zamfir (There is the sensation that about Eminescu was told everything), Ion Bogdan Lefter (Haunted of complex before of a statue proud and cold) and Iulian

14 „SLAT” (no. 24), June 15th, 1990. 15 „România liberă” June 19th, 1990. 16 Sorin Preda, A new and brilliant victory on the literature, in „SLAT”, (no. 25), June 23th,

1990. 17 „Phoenix” (no. 22), June 25th, 1990. Survey conducted by Dan Silviu Boerescu.


Costache (When will we have another statue to represent him?). Respondents belonging to three different generations.

Shortly after “Astra” magazine republic an extensive article by Virgil Nemoianu, Separation from Eminescu18 [Despartirea de eminescianism]: “No, in Romania, is not yet possible, but among the Romanian scholars from the West, I see more and more an encouraging intellectual effort: a self-critical of thinking and of Romanian literature from the last hundred years, and especially distancing or separation from Eminescu and his legacy of ideas. (...) But now I see at Negoiţescu and Ileana Vrancea at Culianu and S. Damian at Stahl, Berindei and Vlad Georgescu, as well as plenty of others, the signs of breakup either from Eminescu nor of his intellectual-political ancestry ... It's not unnatural to be like this.

From the political legacy of Eminescu it was constituted one of the cornerstones of the Iron Guard movement: utopian, radical “specify to the third world” The fracture possibility from the West (...) was increasingly loud proclaimed by the the eldest autochthonists of Eminescu. Anti-historicism, passivity, drowsy withdrawal among them found their fierce defense. On lower levels, Eminescu could attach a stagnant and various idolatrous vulgar sentimentalism, and at an even lower level, bloody violence seek their justification in theory whose genealogy sent to Călinescu and Iorga. (...) The guidelines of cultural criticism that we have grouped around the title Separation from Eminescu [Despartirea de eminescianism]: are perfectly straightforward and correspond to the current needs of Romanian society. But what we need to understand from the background of this formula? What socio-cultural semantic exercise decode this literary or intellectual analysis? If it is a simple way to condemn primary nationalism, anti-Semitism, West rupture values, irrationalism or intellectual reductionism of left and right, then it's relatively easy to get an agreement rather broad ethical and political. When it comes to understand Eminescu, getting more in its historical and socio-cultural context, and not as an archetype adamantine and flawlessly, with timeless validity and features fixed agreement will perhaps be more reluctant and less enthusiastic but - at least in better-informed and more sophisticated audience - could be accomplished.(...) So it comes here not only about Eminescu, whose placement and trial historical may be a specialized procedure, but rather to weigh that value may still have today the update option historic as it was experienced by a number of Romanian thinkers and intellectuals between 1930 and 1980.” A “letter” from August 1990 by Paul Schuster19 contains the following remark: “I do not deny anyone the right to worship Eminescu or Sadoveanu, to prefer sweet Romanian or the biting verses of Arghezi and satirical prose of Caragiale, but I claim the right preference reverse, without being insulted. Forgive me, but I can not taste the idyllicism (Sadoveanu, Pillat), the a-historicism (Blaga), «the confused modernism» '(Ţepeneag, Ivănceanu), the anti-historicism (Delavrancea, Haşdeu/ how grotesque is that megalomaniac his grave at Bellu!), the chauvinism (Eminescu), the fascism (Announcer). Let's finish once the critics

18 The originally text appeared first in the magazine “Dialog” in Germany in March 1990 and it was later replicated in “Astra” no. 7, July 1990 and “Countrapunct” no. 39, Oct. 5th, 1990

19 “Contrapunct” no. 32, Aug. 10th, 1990.


dictatorship, literary reception, with descriptions arbitrary (Călinescu) with mandatory canvas (history textbooks of Romanian Literature)”.

A month later, the “22” Magazine published under the title How the Romanian intellectual relates to the political20 [Cum se raporteaza intelectualul roman la politic], an interview conducted by Magda Cârneci with Ion Negoiţescu. When he was asked which model is able to guide the Romanian post-December society to the values of a liberal democracy, he believes that “a molding fertile influence could exercise, instead Blaga, Eliade or Eminescu – the last one, despite the fact that” we feel completely strangers from his retrograde political ideology. “Adding that in November the same year in „România literară” appears translated, the article of Katherine Verdery21 The protochronism-the official political of culture. Eminescu, proto-marxist? [Protocronismul-politica oficiala a culturii. Eminescu, protomarxist?]. We are finishing the brief journey through the Eminescu’s year 1990 to sum up a few simple conclusions.

III. Opinions on the value, meaning and importance held by Eminescu, poet

long considered a cultural/heritage of the entire nation, took the form of a multiple “voices” concert whose polyphony was quickly covered by the heteroclite component speeches taken individually.

Among them stands out “fine spirits” personalities whose opinion on the issue Eminescu’s issue. Placed face to face, those are the most contradictory opinions, it don’t agree. In literature, one side of the barricade are those excited by Eminescu and the other “siks of Eminescu” (there was always a group, that's right very small but extremely vehemently). Like the name of personal repercussions, Eminescu says “confiscated” by the specialists in ancient history or contemporary analysts the same diferendum there between nationalists and internationalists. One thing seems certain: Eminescu’s posterity becomes more sinful. Distancing from a quarter of century ought to ease a panoramic view of a good information. Nevertheless, answers to the wide range of open question issues are difficult to give.

The more conclusions, is a sign that the dynamics of this subject shows an continues evolution. Instead, I turn to words of the historian Ion-Aurel Pop, who brings in an recently article22 a series of arguments regarding the necesary tons of the continuing process of recovery Eminescu’s heritage. According to the historian opinions, Eminescu is not the “singular” case that fights strongly, this evil germs apodictically spoken and insistent are belonging to the century not the poet. I give only one quote from the text mentioned above: “While in Romania warned us very seriously, since the 90s of last century by week intellectuals- which had arrived afterwards, some of them, high-ranking state officials - that Eminescu is fully revolute, outdated, that it was better to put in brackets (in the “closet”) and that, under no circumstances, Romania can not dream of NATO and of EU haveing on the lips “the autochthonism”, “opused to the West” and

20 „22” (no. 39), Oct. 6th, 1990. 21 „România literară” (no. 45), Nov. 8th, 1990. 22 Ioan-Aurel Pop, Eminescu and the foreigners, in „Academica” June-July, 2014, Anul

XXIV, no. 284-285, pp. 9-13.


“xenophobic” Eminescu!... (...) How could foresee Eminescu the Holocaust, to know what will happen after the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the ONU) or know that recently, the EU would regulate the issue of minorities? It is as like we condemn Isaac Newton becouse he did not know the theory of relativity!”

Even if the discussion remains open, we subscribe to this opinion. Keep in mind that the existence of Eminescu was over a century ago and distortions of interpretation of the work (the Iron Guard and communist periods) were much directed? The question arises, this time with a fashionable phrase, it is correct what is happening with Eminescu. Or even more emphatically: if it was kept the right measure?

REFERENCES Badea, S tefan, (1990), The significance of Eminescu’s proper name

[Semnificaţia numelor proprii eminesciene]. Bucharest, Albatros Publishing House.

Bomher, Noemi, (1990), Eminescu’s Myth and mythology [Mit şi mitologie eminesciană]. Ias i, University “Al. I. Cuza” Publishing House.

Bot, Ioana, (1990), Eminescu and the Romanian poetry today. Eminescu’s Quote in Romanian contemporary poetry [Eminescu şi lirica românească de azi. Citatul eminescian în poezia contemporană românească], Cluj-Napoca, Dacia Publishing House.

Ciompec, Gheorghe, (1990), Eminescu. Eminescu’s Text: analyzes [Eminescu. Textul eminescian: analize]. Anthology, introduction, notes, timeline of Gh. Ciompec. Bucharest, Eminescu Publishing House.

Ciopraga, Constantin, (1990), Eminescu's poetry. Fundamental archetypes and metaphors. [Poezia lui Eminescu. Arhetipuri şi metafore fundamentale]. Ias i, Junimea Publishing House.

Crăciun, Victor, (1990-1991), Eminescu. A century of immortality [Eminescu. Un veac de nemurire]. Album composed by ... Introductory study [by] Al. Piru. Vol. I-II. (Vol. I: [The poet's life]; vol. II: [The poet’s posterity], Bucharest, Minerva Publishing House.

Del Conte, Rosa, (1990), Eminescu or about the Absolute [Eminescu sau despre Absolut]. Edited, translated and prefaced by Marian Papahagi. Foreword by Zoe Dumitrescu-Bus ulenga. Afterword by Mircea Eliade. [With one word by Romanian edition] by Rosa Del Conte. Cluj, Dacia Publishing House.

Livescu, Cristian, (1990), Eminescu the firs [Intaiul Eminescu]. Piatra Neamt , Crigarux Publishing House.

Lungu, Eugen, (1990), Poets from the time of Eminescu [Poeţi de pe vremea lui Eminescu]. Chis inău, Literatura Artistică Publishing House.

Mazilu, Gheorghe, (1990), Reading of Eminescu [Lecturi eminesciene]. Chisinău, Hyperion Publishing House.

Mitican, Ion, (1990), With Mihai Eminescu and Ion Creangă in Iasi Fair. -A sentimental itinerary- [Cu Mihai Eminescu şi Ion Creangă prin Târgul Ieşilor-Itinerar sentimental]. Bucharest, Tourism Publishing House.


Mureșanu Ionescu, Marina, (1990), Eminescu and the romantic intertext [Eminescu şi intertextual romantic]. Ias i, Junimea Publishing House.

Rezuș, Petru, (1990), An unpaired childhood [O copilărie nepereche]. Bucures ti, Ion Creangă Publishing House.

xxx: (1990) Eminescu and Brasov [Eminescu şi Braşovul]. Coordonator Ion Itu. Bras ov, Coresi Publishing House.

xxx: (1990) Eminescu and the European romanticism [Eminescu e il romanticism europeo] by Marin Mincu and Sauro Albisani, Roma, Bulzoni Publishing House.

xxx, (1999) Eminescu, Works [Eminescu Opere], XVII, References. Life-Opera. References. Part I [Bibliografie. Viaţa pera. Referinţe. Partea I] (1866-1938), Bucharest, 1999; Part II [Partea II-a](1939-1989), Romanian Academy Publishing House.

xxx, (2008), M. Eminescu's work - editions and periodicals. References about M. Eminescu in books [Opera lui Mihai Eminescu-ediţii şi periodice. Referinţe despre M. Eminescu în cărţi], Bucharest, Romanian Academy Publishing House.

xxx, (2005), Mihai Eminescu. Annotated bibliography [Bibliografie adnotată] (1990-2005), electronic version http://www.biblacad. ro. EminescuFinalAd.pdf.

xxx: (2015), Romanian literary life Chronology [Cronologia vieţii literare româneşti], Vol. I (1990) Coordinator Eugen Simion, Bucharest, Literature Museum Publishing House.


TTHHEE RREELLAATTIIOONNSSHHIIPP BBEETTWWEEEENN TTHHEE PPOOLLIITTIICCAALL AANNDD TTHHEE EECCOONNOOMMIICC IINN MMIIHHAAII EEMMIINNEESSCCUU’’SS CCOONNCCEEPPTTIIOONN

GGrriiggoorree GGeeoorrggiiuu

[email protected]

Abstract: By insightfully analyzing the Romanian society’s

problematique of his time, Eminescu developed an original conception about the inner contradictions and barriers a society lagging behind in its transition to modernity must overcome. The present-day exegetes, who have the privilege of having before them the entire corpus of Eminescu’s writings, have underpinned the variety of theoretical references and the complexity of his economic and social thinking, as well as his explanatory model he uses in analyzing society and in his critical radiographs of the Romanian realities. Starting from Maiorescu’s assessments on the poet’s philosophical vocation and his cultural horizons, I tried to show that this dimension of Eminescu’s personality became, over time, an important component of his image as a whole. Thus, Eminescu-the thinker is now glued to Eminescu-the poet. To decipher how Eminescu sees the equation of social life, I think the best way is to analyze the relationship between the political and the economic, a relationship which often in Eminescu’s texts the relationships between the forms and content, concepts known from Maiorescu’s theory.

Keyword: Economic civilization, “the king of thinking”, “a new

Eminescu”, the report between the political and economic areas. “A new Eminescu” appeared from the manuscript chest In his journalistic activity, that reached an unequalled dimension in his

epoch, Eminescu proved to be a profound thinker, with an impressive cultural horizon, that can be compared, in Mircea Eliade's opinion, only with B.P.Hasdeu’s intellectual horizon. Eminescu’s thinking system relies on a sound knowledge of political economy, sociology, political sciences, philosophy of culture, linguistics and natural sciences. To re-construe Eminescu's thinking, often distorted during a century and more of applied researches and diverging interpretations, you have to go back to the way Maiorescu, who knew him like no one else, epitomized his image. Before burying his conception under ideological labels, as was the case, we ought to know it in its letter and spirit. And to put it in expressive correlations with the problematique of Romanian society and the movement of ideas in the second half of the 19th century.

The recourse to Eminescu’s texts is the best way to reject many erroneous interpretation in circulation, including in text books, on his conception. For

Professor, PhD., College of Communication and Public Relations, The National

University of Political Studies and Pubic Administration, Bucharest.


instance, that he wished we remain an agrarian state and that he would had been against industrialization, that he would have proposed, as a political solution, “the refuge into the past”, that he would had been a fanatical nationalist, an anti-European, a.o. A careful reading of Eminescu’s texts clears up these things, overturns these cliches, breaks many negative stereotypes which have been perpetuated supported by a certain interested ideological attitude.Thus, the reader of good faith will see entire pages in which Eminescu praizes industry and makes demonstrations that an agricultural country, like Romania, systematically “loses”, he claims, in trading relations with industrialized countries. It is strange that this mythology of a “reactionay” Eminescu, in the strong sense of the word, has survived to this day in the reprezentations of some Romanian intellectuals.

Returning to the assessments by Maiorescu, it is surprising how, in his attempt to define Eminescu’s personality, the literary critic pinpoints, as a characteristic element, his great intellectual capacity, the strength, modernity and amplitude of his mind, calling him „the king of thinking”, who lived his life aspiring to know the entire heritage of human culture. Here is an enlightening excerpt from Maiorescu’s text:

“What characterizes, above all, Eminescu’s personality is his overwhelming intelligence, assisted by a memory where nothing that was imprinted on it ever escaped [..] so that the world in which he lived, in a natural, unforced way, was almost exclusively the world of general ideas”.1

Reading these lines, which speak of „an overwhelming intelligence”, of „the

world of general ideas”, with no mention of a special poetical imagination or the gift for expression, we can wonder who Maiorescu speaks about: a poet or a philosopher? The thirst for knowledge, oriented toward both the universal and the national culture, defines Eminescu in a fundamental way. Further on, Maiorescu writes that he was „the most industrious man, for ever reading, meditating, writing.” As is forshadowing the accusations of nationalism, Maiorescu argued that Eminescu epitomized the contradictory and complementary features of his epoch, namely the aspiration to assimilate both the themes and ideas of European culture – in what it is characteristic „in art, in science, in philosophy” - and also the expression of the national soul in modern forms: „Eminescu’s poetry fulfills both conditions to the extent a lyric poetry can do it; that is why Eminescu is epochal in our literary movement”.

Regarding the poet’s thinking system, Maiorescu is impressed by „the very height of ideas emerging from all his articles”, by the fact that in his journalistic activities at The Time „he whipped up the untrue phraseology” and formulated „the synthesis of a national historical direction”. Let us keep in mind Maiorescu’s words. The critic enormously uplifts the poet’s piedestal and stature. Who else in Romanian culture has ever managed to formulate, being a poet, „the synthesis of a national historical direction”? It is the first recognition of the fact that Eminescu codified, in all his work, a „direction” of national spirituality, a vector

1 T. Maiorescu, Eminescu and his Poems, in the volume: From T. Maiorescu to G. Călinescu, vol. I, Bucharest, Eminescu Publishing House, 1971, p. 55.


of the modern development of Romanian society. Later on, Lucian Blaga would say that there exists is the “Idea of Eminescu” in Romanian culture, namely a certain value orientation, a particular reference to nature, space and time. Moreover, according to his philosophical system, Blaga considers that the stylistic matrix of our culture, expressed until then primarily in the register of popular culture, found in Eminescu a brilliant embodiment, in the register of major creation.2 Similar stylistic featurs, rooted in the same background of colletive unconsciousnes, we see in Constantin Brâncuşi’s sculpture and Dimitrie Cantemir’s work, major creators, about who Blaga has superlative appreciations.

Here are, therefore, two great names in Romanian culture, Maiorescu and Blaga, who see in Eminescu a thinker rather than a poet. He was initially received and praized for his unparallelled poetry, but, gradually, he has come to be praized for his ideas, for his socio-political writings and for what he represents for the Romanian culture. This shift of perspective took place step by step over several decades after the poet’s death. An important episode for this transformation of Eminescu’s image occurred after Maiorescu deposited at the Romanian Academy the poet’s manuscript chest, in 1902. Then, after researching this laboratory of creation, Nicolae Iorga would proclaim, in an article from 1903: “A new Eminescu appeared.” What was published before form the work of poet and the thinker was just the tip of the iceberg. Later on, Constantin Noica, impressed by the variety of cultural references, the depth of ideas and the comments Eminescu made on various topics, would passionately militate for printing these manuscripts.

In a recent book, rich with information on cultural history, but with many questionable considerations and judgments, Lucian Boia undertakes a useful research on the way the poet was perceived and interpreted in different historical periods, to find out how “Eminescu myth” came into being. The author emphasizes this moment, arguing that from “the famous manuscript chest” appeared “a different, even a completely different Eminescu”, as compared to the image crystallized until then in the public consciousness: a romantic, pessimistic poet, who expressed in sublime verses, the drama of misunderstood love.3 From that moment on, we are witnessing a shif of perspective and „a radical rewriting of the myth”. If the “first” Eminescu “was universal and pessimistic”, “the new Eminescu”, on the contrary, is national and confident in the nation’s destiny”.4

Indeed, a new Eminescu appeared from the manuscript chest, Maiorescu took at the poet's death, without searching it. The new Eminescu is not only the poet of the unpublished poems, left behind in the poet’s laboratory, but the thinker who studied passionately, though unsystematically, all the major cultural topics of his time, from the new theories of physics and astronomy, to the studies of German and English economists. The latter were necessary as analytical tools to understand what was going on in Romanian economy.

2 Lucian Blaga, The Trilogy of Culture, in Works, vol. 9, Bucharest, Minerva Publishing

House, 1985, p. 318. 3 Lucian Boia, Mihai Eminescu, the Absolute Romanian. The Making and Unmaking of a

Myth, Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House, 2015, p. 47. 4 Ibidem, p. 61.


Finally, there was a new Eminescu because, in the meantime, publishers gathered his articles scattered through newspapers and printed them in editions with a high circulation. In this way came to light Eminescu-the thinker, Eminescu-the doctrinaire national idea, because these articles, as rightfully Lucian Boia underlines, “illustrated Eminescu’s constant and downright obsessive concern for the destiny of the Romanian people”5. Indeed, this was the supra-theme of Eminescu’s social and political writings. Therefore, not only the known images from his poems, but also the ideas Eminescu promoted turned him into a national myth. Eminescu’s work have become, over time, a resounding box of the Romanian soul, because the encoded representations and ideas in his writings were consistent with the vibrations emerging from the Romanians’ collective unconscious mind. Boia explains that there are many great poets, like Arghezi, but who have not become the myths of Romanian culture. “A character is mythologized when a community is reflected in him, recognizes itself in him, relies on him as a guiding soul”.6 Eminescu meets these conditions. Beyond any critical judgments formulated throughout time regarding his conceptions, one thing is certain: Eminescu takes a central place in Romanian culture. He is a pivot of our national spirituality.

Finally, as we know, many exegetes and interpreters of his work saw in Eminescu the modern synthesis of our national spirit, being called by N. Iorga “the full expression of the Romanian soul” and by G. Călinescu “the unpaired poet”, by C. Noica “the accomplished man of Romanian culture”. And I can quote many other thinkers (Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran etc.) who voiced their admiration in the superlative. Whoever demythizes all Eminescu should ask himself: Did not all these people know what they talked about? How come they used these hyperboles? Did they lose their critical judgment before Eminescu’s work? By no means. They were resposible intellectuals, endowed with a critical spirit, but who saw in Eminescu more than a poet. They saw him both the journalist of ideas, committed to the most heated political confrontations of his time, the passionate philosopher of metaphysical ideas, the thinker interested to decipher the equation of the factors shaping the development of a society. Gradually, in the public perception, the image of the Eminescu-the thinker was added to the already established image of the poet. The two images have been merged, with time, forming a unitary block.

In his poem “The Epigones”, Eminescu names Vasile Alecsandri “the king of poetry, always young and happy”. It is an inspired wording, with a metaphorical meaning. It is symptomatic that, after Eminescu’s death, interessed to find a concise formulation, Maiorescu calls him “the king of thinking”, not of poetry. That is how the image of Eminescu-the thinker starts to grow. Finally, those who see Eminescu always face turned towards the past, “reactionary", xenophobic and anti-European, it would be better to retain this appreciation of Maiorescu: „Eminescu is a man of modern times, his individual's culture is to the level of European culture today”.7

5 Lucian Boia, Mihai Eminescu, the Absolute Romanian. The Making and Unmaking of a

Myth, Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House, 2015. p. 50. 6 Ibidem, p. 15. 7 T. Maiorescu, cited works, p. 59.


“Economic civilization is the mother of political civilization” Contested or seen in an apologetic way, Eminescu’s poetic and theoretical

work does not decrease, but instead increases in significance in time, proof thereon being that it is always subject to new interpretations, from different angles of approach. In its economic and sociological analyzes, Eminescu was not “a poet”, but instead he proceeded with scientific rigor, quoting on all occasions concepts and analyses from the arsenal of the major economists of the time. A careful and applied reading of his journalism makes us radically change the image conveyed to us by a certain interpretative tradition, which saw in Eminescu a “Romantic” spirit, detached from reality, “floating” in the world of imagination and poetic utopias. There is a “new Eminescu”, as Iorga writes, an Eminescu organically committed to the political and ideological confrontations of his time, an Eminescu involved, with all his being, in supporting the national idea, an Eminescu who examines competently and profoundly the Romania’s social and economic situation, an Eminescu who studied in his sleepless nights the treaties of political economy written by Western scholars so as to keep up with the new theories and methodologies analyzing the economic phenomena (for instance, on the commercial and financial balance, on the relationship between agriculture and industry etc.).

Eminescu constantly approaches the relationship between politics and economics from the perspective of the correlation between form and content. “The state civilization” (political structures) should be in agreement with economic structures. Here are the texts through which Eminescu introduces us to the core of the matter.

“The moral qualities of a people depend – abstracting climate and race – on its economic state [....]. Hence, the condition of state civilization is the economic civilization. To introduce the forms of a foreign civilization without involving its economic correlative is a work utterly in vain”.8

“The forms” are, in Eminescu’s words of that age, the institutions of the

modern-type political system, which were taken over uncritically and were not adjusted to Romanian reality. They were “organically” generated first in the Western developed countries, wherefrom they spread gradually towards the backward countries, situated at the outskirts of the Western system of civilization, without encountering here an adequate economic and sociological content. And “the economic correlative” of these political forms, a correlative needed in these countries as well, Romania included, means, briefly, a prosperous and cultivated “middle class”, writes Eminescu, a consolidated industrial system, articulated on an intensive, not extensive, agriculture, a “diversification of the working forms”, hence a division of labour specific for modern societies (not reducing the country only to “agricultural toiling”, as is the case of Romania), a type of capitalism able to articulate in effective forms capital and labour, able to produce added value above the level of consumption, to produce wealth, not poverty, to foster the internal accumulation of profit, not its

8 Mihai Eminescu, Works, vol. X, Bucharest, the SRR Academy Publishing House of, 1989, p. 30.


draining out over the borders. In a word, the needed “the economic correlative” of modern democracy means genuine capitalist, market economy structures. But performance structures, which will produce the welfare, not poverty. Here is Eminescu’s another, more explicit phrase:

“Ever since the world exists, there has never been a people high politically and low economically; these two orders of things are in a close relationship: economic civilization is the mother of political civilization.”9

As we can see, the correlation between politics and economy is the key to

understanding Eminescu’s conception. He often invokes the “close connection” between the two components, because the development capacity of a society depends precisely on the congruence of its elements, the functional interaction between the spheres of social life, the relations of mutual implication, the organicity of the social whole. At that time, Romanian society was disharmonic, and the political and economic structures were not related and were in the process of internal transformation. Use of the terms “economic civilization” and “political civilization” denotes Eminescu's intention to emphasize the internal complexity of the two hemispheres of the social system, but also "close link" between them. In his organicist and historicist vision, the joint between the political and economic areas must ensure the integrated nature and functional society.

As we can see, Eminescu gives a major importance to economic factors, so that, starting from the statement that “economic civilization is the mother of the political one”, we could speak about an economic determinism. Nonetheless, Eminescu works with a more complex equation of factors determining and influencing the evolution of society. Obviously, this equation includes the nature of institutions and their administrative capacity, but mainly the quality of the political class, given that the decisions of the political elite can ster up the destiny of a nation. For present-day specialists in sociology, Eminescu unveils himself in these efforts as a “full-fledged sociologist”, as a genuine thinker. The new interpretations of his conception, thanks mainly to sociologists Ion Ungureanu10 and Ilie Badescu11, and to others as well shed a new light on Eminescu’s theories on superposed layers and social compensation.

Eminescu builds up his texts on extensive sociological analyses, with specific references to the realities of his time, so that it is often difficult to disentangle the logic scheme of his reasoning from his analytical applications. However, some quite polemical texts have relevant theoretical nuclei, formulations in which the thought is crystallized in condensed, even aphoristic expressions. Eminescu’s analyses, whatever the issues addressed, always put in correlation the formal structures (institutions, laws, the conduct of polical agents and their decisions) with the substantive aspects of society, with the economic and social structures. In the first phase, his analysis scrutinizes and describes the facts, on which he formulates a diagnosis of a social situation, while in the second phase he explains

9 Mihai Eminescu, Works, vol. XIII, Bucharest, SRR Academy Publishing House, 1985, p. 182. 10 Ion Ungureanu, Social Ideals and National Realities, Bucharest, The Scientific and

Encyclopaedic Publishing House, 1988. 11 Ilie Bădescu, Eminescu’s Sociology, Galaţi, Porto-Franco Publishing House, 1994.


this situation through the correlation of forms and content, thus showing what implications political decisions had or would have on economy and social life. Having always beford him the the picture of Romanian social anomalies and the historic imperative of the Romanian state’s economic strengthening, Eminescu denounced like no one else in his time, the predatory behavious of superposed layers, the politicking and negative social selection, the effects of peripheral capitalism in the Romanian space.

In G. Călinescu’s opinion, Eminescu “is perhaps the first Romanian political thinker to support his doctrine on economy.” He frequently resorts to the “economic point of view” as a fundamental foothold in all his analyzes dedicated to social issues. “If we throw a glance from above to his politics, we shall see that his anti-semitism, xenophobia, antiliberalism and almost all the other aspects are actually economic attitudes”.12 Călinescu notices that, in the last years of his life, the poet made in his notebooks ever more numerous “notes and excerpts from political economy”. Indeed, it is somewhat unnatural for a poet to give to economic factors a first-rate importance in the evolution of society. Let us conclude with Eminescu’s axiomatic formulation: “True freedom and economic independence are two identical concepts”.13 A verdict still valid any time.

REFERENCES Bădescu, Ilie, (1994), Eminescu’s Sociology, Galaţi, Porto-Franco Publishing

House. Blaga, Lucian, (1985), Trilogy of Culture, in Works, vol. 9, Bucharest,

Minerva Publishing House. Boia, Lucian, (2015), Mihai Eminescu, the Absolute Romanian. The Making

and Unmaking of a Myth, Bucharest, Humanitas. Călinescu, G., (1970), Mihai Eminescu's Work, in vol. G. Călinescu, Works,

vol. 13, Bucharest, Minerva Publishing House. Eminescu, M., (1989), Works, vol. X, Bucharest, SRR Academy Publishing

House. Eminescu, M., (1985), Works, vol. XII, Bucharest, SSR Academy Publishing

House. Eminescu, M., (1985), Works, vol. XIII, Bucharest, SSR Academy Publishing

House. Maiorescu, T., (1971), Eminescu and his Poems, in the volume: From T.

Maiorescu to G. Călinsecu, vol. I, Bucharest, Eminescu Publishing House. Ungureanu, Ion, (1988), Social Ideals and National Realities, Bucharest,

Scientific and Encyclopedic Publishing House.

12 G. Călinescu, Mihai Eminescu’s Work, in vol. Works, vol. 13, Bucharest, Minerva

Publishing House, 1970, p. 159. 13 M. Eminescu, Works, vol. X, Bucharest, The Publishing House of the RSR Academy, 1989,

p. 301.


EEMMIINNEESSCCUU OONN TTHHEE PPAATTHHOOLLOOGGYY OOFF PPUUBBLLIICC MMOOEEUURRSS AANNDD TTHHEE TTHHEEOORRYY OOFF CCOOMMPPEENNSSAATTIIOONN

VVaassiillee MMaaccoovviicciiuucc

[email protected]

Abstract: The political attitude is immediately noticeable in Eminescu’s

journalism, but beyond this and as the foundation of his options unfolding is a real conceptual network, a sociological discourse by itself; most of his analyzes reveal the presence of a theorical, lucid and politically neutral core. This ideatic background is, most often, overlooked, because the interpretation of his texts depends on polemical contexts and interests; nonetheless, even when the apparaising neutrality is stated, at variance are a series of assumptions, emotional reactions, prejudices, attitudinal passions and choices – either original or activated in the process. What matters is, however, the extent to which the hermeneutic act shows a minimum aperture toward the adequacy to textual meanings, the affective complicity with the author’s avowed or latent intentions to reconstrue the purport of his messages through subjective descentering.

Eminescu approaches national themes through socio-economic analyses, while social issues are seen in a national and historical context; within this referral, he rejects both the imported recipes, the schemes of a universalist ideation unrooted in first-hand psycho-socio-economic realities, and also the ostentatious or permanently festivist nationalism.

Eminescu’s political thinking shapes up through a sociological and critical distancing toward first instance psychological / attitudinal reactions.

Keywords: age of transition, economic groups, economic illusion, society

of non-stability, law on negative social selection, theory of compensation. Eminescu makes the diagnosis of Romanian society which – by the end of

the 19th century – was put to the mill of modernization, starting from the assumption that „many states of things could be explained, but not justified, by the expression age of transition”1. He insightfully examines the distance between the effects of political legitimation and the real effects and he points out, on one hand, the consequences that inevitably come with the transition which, consequently, must be taken as such and, on the other, the negative changes that alter the social structures, the economic regime of ownership, the functionality of institutions, the stratification processes, the public morality, the social

Professor, PhD., Department of Philosophy and Socio-Human Sciences, the

Academy Economic Studies – Bucharest. 1 M. Eminescu, Opere (Works), XI, Publicistică [17 februarie - 31 decembrie 1880],

(Journalism, February 16 – December 31, 1880), Edition coordinator Al. Oprea, The Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1984, p. 19.


relationships and behaviors. This last category is no longer natural and falls within the pathological transition triggered by the strategy of power elites. Eminescu scrutinizes from a sociological viewpoint these psycho-social processes whose destructive energies are either tolerated or stimulated by the legal order of the „liberal age”. However, as „the state of things comes in a strictly causal order from a preceding state of things”2, the location of the „diseases” in the social body is followed by the identification of the possible sources and, for that very fact, of the appropriate cure/remedy. The ruling elites set this kind of course to economic and social changes so that - beyond any intentions, claims, effortful gains, resources and unacceptably big losses – they managed „to maintain all the shortcomings of the past, cloaked up in very costly reforms, utterly out of proportion with the production power and the intellectual culture of this people.”3

Eminescu believes that his epoch is characterized by the clash between the idea of state and individualism. The interpersonal struggles, on one hand, and between individuals and the generally-unifying mission of state structures, on the other, belong, at least in the elementary stages of expression, to the equation of a social Darwinism. This ongoing conflict should be, however, controlled, so as to take the form of a tension generating creation and progress. In fact, the effective establishment of Western capitalism is a testimony thereon. Individual interests are harmonizable and, through integration into guilds, castes, classes, they accrue their enforcing power; political principles and parties are effective only to the extent that they really express homogeneous opinions and interests, clarified by and grounded on suchwise solidarizations of socio-economic forces. Nonetheless, within the Romanian space, according to Eminescu, the ideological projects of the time are bankrupt, since they imitate the West and do not have any organic links with domestic realities. The legislative and institutional framework glorifies „the rational state” - based on civil rights and the universalist declarations of the French Revolution –, which is, in fact, a „cosmopolitan state”4 and a „demagogical state”5, instead of being a national state and a national society, founded on historical bases. If the English evolutionary line logically assimilated its capital tradition – both economic and moral –, the revolutionary course followed by the radical Romanians – of French inspiration – are limited to solutions that do not elicit, but inhibit and erode the autochthonous availabililities.

„Political groups - writes Eminescu - should be correlated to economic groups and, for the most part [with us – A/N] they are not.”6

2 Ibid., p. 17. 3 Ibid., p. 18. 4 M. Eminescu, Opere (Works), X, Publicistică [1 noiembrie 1877 - 15 februarie 1880],

(Journalism, November 1, 1877 - February 15, 1880), Coordinator Dimitrie Vatamaniuc, Academiei Publishing House, Bucharest, 1989, p. 238.

5 M. Eminescu, Opere (Works), XII, Publicistică [1 ianuarie – 31 decembrie 1881], (Jornalism, January 1 – December 31, 1881), Edition coordinator Al. Oprea, Academiei Publishing House, Bucharest, 1985, p. 162.

6 M. Eminescu, Opere (Works), X, Publicistică [1 noiembrie 1877 - 15 februarie 1880], (Journalism, November 1, 1877 - February 15, 1880), cited works, p. 155.


„The condition of a state civilization is the economic civilization”, but „nothing is easier to produce, nothing harder to maintain that the economic illusion”.7 The blunt practicing of certain Western models, without taking into account the historical traumas, the availabilities and inertias of the domestic background has led to a development that is more mimed than real, in any case with irrecoverable losses (in terms of cultural memory, of pragmatic experiences, of psychologies and so on and so forth). The missing consistency of the economic foundation is right away perceptible in the decreased number of producers and their productive power, the destruction of traditional structures, the alarming increase of improductive and consuming elements. Therefore, under the circumstances Eminescu referred to, the economic life can not be reduced to the production, exchange and consumption of goods, instead its paradigmatic hypostases encroaches on the society’s moral state. The organic evil proliferates individualistic aggressiveness, upstartism, demagoguery, parasitism, tendency for easy gains and without work, laws for spreading out such a behavior. Dominant are, therefore, improductive social manifestations; growing are the supported layers which, only apparently justifying their usefulness, belong to the pathological side of history.

On the whole, the beginnings of the Romanian “liberal age” develop within the frameworks of a “society of non-stability”8. In Eminescu’s view, “the non-stability” is characteristic for a type of global society emerged in the critical stages of Romanian history. For Eminescu, this notion follows neither a rigorously mastered conceptual status, nor a contextual proteism. The state of “non-stability” is seen to be the opposite to organic epochs. It is defined by bad changes at the level of institutions and economic life; the lack of stamina, credibility, authority of power; the uncertainties related to the very knowledge/competence in the exercise of power shown by the elites controlling it – the power to govern – because the intense disputes give the feeling of a continuous temporariness wherein firm commitments are risky; a society in dangerously unsettled in its joints; a passionate mobility on a loosely controlled vertical line; acute crises of social life and, in general, of integrative instances; a general anxiety produced by the perception/premonition of impending but undefined dangers; troublesome institutional disfunctionalities marked by the attenuation or cancellation/loss of the capacity to fix social mechanisms (because of the fracture between the “legal homeland” and “the real homeland”, due to the lack of interest in capturing the needs, current interests or to the impossibility to welcome them). This approximation of the semantic profile reveals that “non-stability” means, of course, the absence of organicity, of health, normality, stability; nonetheless, it is not an absence as a simple deficiency or lack of what is desirable, but instead an active absence as a waste of energies and exhaustion of national powers. The meanings of “non-stability” are geared, in Eminescu’s texts,

7 M. Eminescu, Opere, (Works), XI, Publicistică [17 februarie - 31 decembrie 1880],

(Journalism, February 17 – December 31, 1880), Ed. cit., Ibid., p. 146. 8 M. Eminescu, Opere, (Works), IX, Publicistică [1870 - 1877], (Journalism, 1870 – 1877),

Introductory study by Al. Oprea, Academiei Publishing House, Bucharest, 1980, pp. 171, 173, 464, 468; to be compared with pp. 166, 168.


around the state and/or style of political institutions, which is propagated within all the other articulations of the body social, so that they are eaten up by “diseases” that produce effective “gaps”; individuals and social groups can become aware or not of this kind of phenomena, some of which are produced - by a false understanding - even with the contribution and joy of those who bear the consequences of these diseases.

The equation of changes setting in motion the non-stability cycle is shaped by the conjugation of endogenous and exogenous factors. The sources of the Romanian disease are social-political and have a geopolitical supra-determination. The historically accumulated fragility of power elites and institutions, against a tolerant and slightly fatalist ethnopsychological background, weakened the social organism, making it accessible and/or available to imperial influences – both traditional and modern. This led to a society of non-stability through the slow erosion of centralized power structures to grips with causal strings stemming from political fortunes and misfortunes rooted in the geographical position; the ethnopsychological background modeled and formulated by an institutional tradition; the pressures of East European empires concomitantly with and at variance with the ever more obvious interests in the area of Western metropolies. The convergence on a negative path of the three categories of factors can be seen as a matrix for the destiny of Romanian history.

Eminescu notices that the Romanians have a certain tendency towards division, discord, an inclination toward the spectacular display of the self, an enhanced appetite, both at individuals and groups, to accede to power, untamed/unmoderated by an equal availability to solidarity and obedience. Our ethnic defects - affiliation/association/integration in deficit – had the chance to get structured around an institution: elective reign. The weak reign during the Romanian Middle Ages is potentially contained in the very local structure of that institution, in its structural vices: it is both dynastic and elective, so that it legitimizes the claim to the throne of whoever direct descendants (able body and mind) or of any side branches. “A certain compensation for the better” is given by the fact that it allows a flexible policy, at times geopolitically efficient, true “balancing exercises” between rival powers. A whole arsenal of conjectural survival techniques is put at the service of sustainable stakes: the country’s independence and the unconstrained assertion of ethno-cultural identity. Perennial values of national policy - symbolic permanences – are casuistically tracked down through a pragmatic skillfulness. It can be said the longer reigns, which gave birth to organic epochs, achieved the goals of this ruling institution, by practicing “balancing exercises”, but only for and as long as they belittled the shortcomings of electivity through authority, military power, electing the successor, suppression of and/or sending into exile the real or potential competitors, subordination of the boyars etc. That is why, in Eminescu’s opinion, the elective reign is doomed to be “the seed of non-stability in the country”, even if its geopolitical usefulness can not be denied. The oligarchic boyards become “the stage directors of this drama”9.

9 M. Eminescu, Opere, (Works) XI, Publicistică [17 februarie - 31 decembrie 1880], (Journalism, February 17 – December 31, 1880), Ed. cit., p. 21.


The constituent deficit of the reigning institution involves the selfishness of the real or possible depositories of public power, building up into an acquired anguish - division -, especially typical for upper classes, also conveyed to the layers of social life in direct resonance with the sphere of power, eventually in a position to dominate/control the style of social ascension, the movement of elites within superstructures, the organizational frameworks of social relations. The activism of this acquired anxiety prepares/facilitates the establishment of the Phanariot cycle, amplifying its effects, turning it into something qualitatively different from what was before that. In this historical cycle, the phenomenon acquires destructive proportions, “the central power of the state is clearly nominal”, the country being “administered as a kind of estate”.10 What is missing is the stable point around which national energies should be crystallized. The seed of division is for ever rooted as a social-historical disease after the Phanariotes and the Russian “influence”, being the ferment of a “society of non-stability”. If, until then, rivalries meant changes in balance, from then on they entailed structural changes. The non-stability was generalized and created a propitious „social environment”, a public atmosphere which amplifies/stimulates generalization.

Therefore, a continuous line can be identified from the medieval formula of patriotic/national loyalism – which endeavoured for a policy of effective independence - and the biased party, client-based loyalism struggling for power. For Eminescu, the hardships the socio-economic and cultural Romanian space encountered on its road towards modernization come not only from these actually inherited conditions, but also from a politically inadequate, artificial, vaguely national treatment, with synchronistic passion for these realities. His conviction is that, while the concrete situation can not be changed right away and, therefore, it should be seen as such by any political programme, the public lifestyle - with its political pivot - can and must be brought onto the path of a fertile realism. It means to remove those sources of internal weakness which, by degeneration, is a kind of evil heredity and affects mentalities, interhuman relations, reforming projects, the power backstages, the socio-cultural climate.

Eminescu draws up a law on negative social selection, taking into consideration the imperial/geopolitical pressures: “when a people falls under foreign domination, vanquished by numerical superiority, its vigorous and steady elements will be held behind, whereas those who will adapt to the new environment of slavery, the sycophants, the liars, the rogues will rise up”.11 This “law on predominance” is not a mere modification of Darwin’s theory, although Eminescu himself claims such a localization of his contributions; Eminescu writes on/points out: “It is not the strong or the wise as such, not the mind and

10 M. Eminescu, Opere, (Works) IX, Publicistică [1870 - 1877], (Journalism, 1870 – 1877), Ed.

cit., p. 169. 11 M. Eminescu, Opere, (Works) XII, Publicistică [1 ianuarie – 31 decembrie 1881],

(Journalism, January 1 – December 31, 1881), Ed. cit., p. 281.


the bravery, not the justice and the truth that climb up in this world, but instead that quality which can adapt itself to fatally given circumstances”12.

Eminescu’s texts explicitly dealing with this issue bring to the light a substantive referral – accepted by the scientific world and in fashion at that time – endorsed by factual generalizations, so that journalistic enunciations fall in line and must be read as the facets an explanatory synthesis - with a dispersed ratiotination - and by no means as mere occasional statements. The distancing from Darwin’s conception is therefore important not so much by what it does not accept – the obvious literal facet – or by what it does not refuse/reject from the theory on the struggle for existence, but by what it proposes. It is evident that, although Eminescu often emphasizes the racial aspect and raises the stakes almost always in a violent way, “the predominance law” is broken down into various hypostases, that differ in terms of area, analytical angle and conclusions. It is a happy case of merging together different arguments in terms of origin and caliber: ethno-psychological, historical and sociological. Their build-up is layered: from simple findings and diagnoses to explanatory hypotheses. Law itself is open to differentiations and emphases, to sociological modulations subhect to these theoretical and methodological parameters. We mention that the term „race” is used by Eminescu to designate bio-psycho-cultural and socio-historical entities, being equivalent to „element”, “nation”, “nationality”, ethnic group and so on. Subsequent derogatory appelations, discriminatory ideologies and realities should not be projected on it.

Eminescu is working with the assumption that „after all, any form however subtle of life is reduced to a solid, experimental substratum”. Within this aperture, the cluttered factological contents generate focal points of spontaneous generalization: “the great country, the rationale and the groundwork of our nationality, does not find the conscience of the political relations with those who rule it”13, being obvious the fracture of the, dominant elite with the real country. The sociological aspect is used to disentangle the behavioral pattern the occupiers practiced, established and spread over the Romanian space. The features of the Phanariot and, respectively, neo-Phanariot behavioral model, are captured through ethnopsychological intuition and public observational proofs, the emphasis being placed on a certain indifference to local customs and genuine interests of positive classes, on the predatory, selfishly motivated conduct, on the parasitic, purely consumerist position in relation to the requirements of compensation among social classes/strata, which means, in fact, a falsification of the pragmatic behavior justified by/through the liberal doctrine. Therefore, we consider that Eminescu x-rays this issue in sociological terms, the allogeneic people being treated as elements of a local xenocracy. By negative social selection, organicity is altered and a type of unstable society becomes permanent.

By the theory of compensation, Eminescu suggests some articulations defining a normal, organic society: the harmonization of the spheres of human activity, i.e., those economic proportions that can guarantee a genuine

12 M. Eminescu, Opere, (Works) XI, Publicistică [17 februarie – 31 decembrie 1880], (Journalism, February 17 – December 31, 1880). Ed. cit., p. 372.

13 Ibid., p. 15.


modernization through the stimulation of a healthy division of labor; the equivalent exchange of goods and activities; the dynamic equilibrium between production and consumption needs. “Compensation - writes Eminescu – is given by a class or by a man only through muscular or intellectual work”14. When this minimal condition of coexistence is encroached (by laws, practices and/or mentalities), communities/groups emerge and, through their behavior and functions, they do not prove their worth and do not justify their existence, as they produce nothing (neither economically, nor politically or culturally), they have a parasitic status and therefore they are supported. These heterogeneous structures of “unproductive consumers” - populations with an uneven dispersion within the social hierarchy and, notwithstanding this, “closely linked by their community of nonentities” – constitute a superposed layer. This does not mean, however, mere parasites, but instead groups brought together by their passion for wealth and power, whose social participation stands – whatever the field it is exercised – for nothing else but the mere claim of rights, without putting into balance moral duties, skills and merits. The rules of inter-relational life are systematically violated, under the guise of fulfilling so-called historic missions; while posing in civilizing heroes and martyrs of progress, they make permanent “the economic illusion”, make worse the underdevelopment by imitating certain models (in economics or in culture), trigger the decay and the forced proletarization of positive classes, cancel active traditions and treat psychoethnocultural configuration as an eternal obstacle to synchronize with a power center – seen as a prototype, irrespective of its geographical location.

Eminescu sees economic civilization as the foundation of national civilization; consequently, the protection, organization and stimulation of basic working duties; since the productive powers and creative energies are, for the individual and the nations, limited, they must be used efficiently, wisely, through good governance; waste is a luxury that can not be accepted. “The abundance” (the profit) is the source of an expanded, improved reproduction of labor and, at the same time, the source “nourishing our entire national civilization”. Therefore, all the spheres of human manifestation must prove, within the social space, their usefulness motivating their existence - which implies their capacity to create that equivalent – needed by collective civilization - rewarding productive work. The individuals, the layers and the classes that do not observe this reciprocity make up this parasitic, supported layer. Here is the source of economic and social pathology and the law of compensation establishes the natural conditions for the social exchange, for the morally vertebrate reciprocity.

REFERENCES

Eminescu, M., (1980), Opere (Works), IX, Publicistică [1870 - 1877] (Journalism, 1870 – 1877), Introductory study by Al. Oprea, Bucharest, Academiei Publishing House.

14 M. Eminescu, Opere, (Works) XII, Publicistică [1 ianuarie – 31 decembrie 1881],

(Journalism, January 1 – December 31, 1881), Ed. cit., p. 373.


Eminescu, M., (1989), Opere (Works), X, Publicistică [1 noiembrie 1877 - 15 februarie 1880] (Journalism, November 1 – February 15, 1880), Coordinator Dimitrie Vatamaniuc, Bucharest, Academiei Publishing House.

Eminescu, M., (1984), Opere (Works), XI, Publicistică [17 februarie - 31 decembrie 1880] (Journalism, February 17 – December 31, 1880), Edition coordinator Al. Oprea, Bucharest, Academiei Publishing House,.

Eminescu, M., (1985), Opere (Works), XII, Publicistică [1 ianuarie – 31 decembrie 1881] (Journalism, January 1 – December 31, 1881), Edition coordinator Al. Oprea, Bucharest, Academiei Publishing House.


IINNTTEERREETTHHNNIICC AANNDD IINNTTEERRCCUULLTTUURRAALL CCOOMMMMUUNNIICCAATTIIOONN IINN TTHHEE RRUUSSSSIIAANN VVEERRSSIIOONNSS OOFF EEMMIINNEESSCCUU''SS PPOOEEMM

““LLUUCCEEAAFFĂĂRRUULL””

MMiirroossllaavvaa MMeettlleeaaeevvaa ((LLuucchhiiaanncciiaaccoovvaa))

[email protected] Abstract: This article paid a special attention to influence of

circumstances on the creativity of the poet and the laboratory of the translator. It presents the points of contention in the canonized translations of the poem "Luceafărul" by Mihai Eminescu related with the historical and socio-political conditions of the epoch.

The research is focused on the problem of distacing the interpretation of the poem as a fairy tale which limits the translation. The poem "Luceafărul" is mostly associated with the author's worldview, with the allegory and mythological structure of the poem. In the article are presented the motivation and criteria of the translating, the different intercultural relations as well as the canonization of the translation versions.

Keywords: Eminescu, translation process, circumstances, system of

versification, canonization, historical specificity, mythological structure. The relationship between language and mind is a popular psycho-

sociological category today such as that of mentality. It takes into account both an individual's mind as well as that of an entire nation. Consequently, the national mentality is nothing more than the cultural specificity of a nation and the way it is perceived in the world. Namely through the tongue there can be conceived the mental peculiarities of a nation, the peculiarities characteristic for spirituality, for the national consciousness and for the way it is perceived by other nations. The poetic translation is one of the ways of inter-linguistic and intercultural communication, including several kinds of information, of which the most important are: factual (narrative), conceptual (the consequence of understanding the facts) and aesthetics. The formation of an adequate picture in the consciousness of a foreigner about the culture and the spirituality of another nation depends on the quality of the translation. The professional translation is the essential lever for the impartial transmission in the foreign literature space of the information contained in the original text.

The poem “Luceafarul” is one of the peaks of the artistic creation of the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu, the quintessence and the synthesis of the general human values, as well as the values specific for a certain ethnic group. Any translation is an interpretation of this unique national-conceptual creation, with its own specific system of values, images and meanings. The inter-linguistic

Researcher, Institute of Philology, Academy of Science of Moldova.


and intercultural translation of the most significant works of a national literature is a process with its own paradigm of losses and compensations and can not be achieved without a certain knowledge base on which depends the interpretation of the original text.

It has been more than 130 years from the date of publication of the poem “Luceafarul” in April 1883 in a modest student almanac published by the Association “Romania Yuna” in Vienna. According to the unanimous opinion of the commentators, the poem is the peak of all the erotic and philosophical creation, and, as Tudor Vianu noted “it is the synthesis of the greatest lyrical categories”. Noting that “Luceafarul” is based on a fairy tale, Noica considers that we have a model of being, mentioned in the work “Introducing the miracle of Eminescu”.

Every nation finds its authentic image reflected primarily in its own linguistic universe. The brilliant way Eminescu incorporated the Romanian language in his work was the starting point for the development of the artistic literature of universal calibre and the thoroughgoing study of the thinking of spiritual and national. We should however mention that the epithet “brilliant” is legitimated only in case a work exceeds the national specific and opens itself to universality in a value dialog. It is certain that the universal perception of Eminescu was manifested in the translations and the studies of his work.

As the academician Mihai Cimpoi mentions, the reception of Mihai Eminescu’s creation in the Russian-speaking space outlines a flying and falling “whimsical sinusoid”1, with disappointments in the horizons of expectations with surprises, presenting numerous testimonies of evaluations and points of view, cultural fantasies, and different hermeneutical approaches to the myth of Eminescu.

The contemporary criticism reinterpreted the poem according to some more modern trends. It disagrees with the aesthetic post-Hegelian perception according to which the work of art is a simple illustration of a previous idea, conceived in another language; it becomes a hermeneutical challenge, addressed to the receptors of every certain age.

The translation studies remain indebted to hermeneutics that assumes the role of the mediator in the translation process. By definition and essence the translation represents the communion and / or the hermeneutical route established between two speakers, two discourses, and two cultures.

The preservation of the cultural identity during the transfer process assumed by the translation is determined by the relationship established between own and foreign. The ratio between the two terms of the equation, the way they interact and the result of this interaction are thoroughly analyzed by the hermeneutical thinkers. The basis of the adjustment mechanism between two different cognitive models is described in detail by Umberto Eco (2004) by Hans-Georg Gadamer (2001); the theories about the way the transfer between own and foreign occurs are formulated by Paul Ricoeur (2005), who is especially concerned about the issue of translation.

1 Cimpoi, Mihai, Mihai Eminescu – The Encyclopaedic Dictionary, Сh., Gunivas, 2012, p. 440.


Moreover, the transmission of a cultural identity aiming the recognition as a otherness delimitated by us and which is opposed according to its specificity, the translation means the receiving of a foreign culture in the midst of the own culture. The exchange that occurs between the two cultural communities that start interacting through the process of translation, in the case of each contact with a new individuality, does not have as a result a simple transfer, but leads to a first sight, to an increase. At a deeper level, the reverse of this increase that occurs at a linguistic level, is conceptually and culturally the dissolution: the limits mutually abolish and the circle that they describe continuously expands, leading to a progressive vacuum. In his article “Barbarity in Interpretation. Reflections on Schleiermaher’s Hermeneutics” Nicolae Râmbu notes: “It is obvious that a work is enriched by its interpretations, as demonstrated by Gadamer in Wahrheit und Methode, but we must not disregard the fact that the value of the same work can be diminished or even destroyed by a barbaric interpretation. It is enough to think that no matter how well someone possess an arspoetica, if one is not born a poet than one can not become a poet, but a versifier, “uttering empty words that will blare pointlessly” as Eminescu said”2.

The researcher from Romania, Elena Loghinovski, in her book Eminescu, published in Bucharest in 2000, writes: “Translated into Russian with a delay of several decades, the “Luceafărul” has made hardly its way to the sensitivity of the new reader”.

According to Virgil Cândea this happened because of several reasons "During the communist regime even in Romania there have been banned not less than 38 editions of the works of Eminescu that appeared between 1893 and 1946 among which were the academic edition of Perpessicius and a number of translations in English, German and French.

Eminescu "sinned" in advance against the totalitarian ideology through Doina, through the political articles in the journal Timpul, by his struggle for the rights of the Romanians from Basarabia and Bucovina and, eventually, through all his thinking that was too idealistic and too Romanian"3.

And even if before the revolution in Russia there were published the first translations of Eminescu's works that have appeared during his lifetime, and even if he was appreciated as a valuable Romanian poet equal to Pushkin and was placed in a row with Musset, Heine and Baudelaire in the magazine Russkaia Mysli (N4, 1891); since 1905 until the middle 50's of the 20th century, with rare exceptions, it began an era of hushing up his creation. The linguistic problems that have become a part of politics and ideology impeded the arrival of Eminescu’s masterpiece - the poem "Luceafarul" – in the Russian reader's attention.

The great temporary break between the first publications of the Russian translations at the end of the 19th century up to the middle of the 50s of the

2 Loghinovski, Elena, The Universal Eminescu. The Area of Russian Culture. 2nd edition,

Bucharest, Vinea Edition, 2000, p. 212. 3 Cândea, Virgil, Eminescu - Over Infinite Time (Foreword), Ch., Litera; Bucharest, David,

2001, p. 6.


20thcentury and the social political commotions of this historical period affected the approach to the translation of the poem “Luceafarul”.

Starting with the fact that there was no direct access to the literary sources about the biographical data of Eminescu and continuing with the penuries of the essential scientific and philosophic sources regarding the science and the theory of the western literature, it can be ascertained that these gaps narrowed the possibilities of the translators for an adequate approaching to the masterpiece of Eminescu.

The long discussions about the national and linguistic specifics of Bassarabian space did not contribute to a detailed study of Eminescu’s creation and to the cognition of the scientific researches of the Romanian scholars regarding the work of the poet.

Three of the five translations of the poem “Luceafărul” have been made in Moscow and two - in Chisinau.

Before talking about the Russian versions “Luceafărul” we should remark “the underwater rocks” (obstacles) that the translators tried to avoid. His style is a suggestive one, with reception ambiguities for the speaker of a foreign language.

1. The worldviewformation was under the influence of the German

language, literature, philosophy, history and natural sciences from the beginning. Because of this, Eminescu was initiated at the fullest level in the Universal culture. He continued his studies at the universities from Vienne and Berlin. Knowing very well German, Eminescu translated from German and into German. For example, "Critique of the Pure Reason" of Kant, the treaty of Enric Theodor Rotscher on the art of dramaturgy; the aphorisms and the poetry of Goethe, Schiller, Lenau, Keller. G. Calinescu and other scholars have found thematic links between Eminescu and Novalis, Hölderlin, Heibel, Eihendorf, Heine, Brentano. The texts in German occupy a significant place in poet's notebooks.

2. Philosophy. The most Romanian note that Eminescu brings into the

philosophy of art in establishing its ontological status is putting it into a ratio naturalis. Returning to nature (in the way of Rousseau) is also an imperative of literary language. Eminescu’s philosophy of style derives from its general gnossiologicalorganicism. In the Encyclopedic Dictionary "Mihai Eminescu" Mihai Cimpoi emphasizes that: "Philosophically, Eminescu, as Heidegger was searching for a way out of the maze of contradictions, even reconciling with them, deepening them, laboring in order to bring them together into a unit. The Philosopher applies seriously the genetic method, because he needs to see how a shape originates from another shape, a reflection from another reflection, a maximum from another maximum. The history is pure science, and simultaneously a practical science, which implies theorizing and experience, captivation in “synthetic thoughts” similar to those of Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer, and obedience to the life impulses, and to the movements of the soul”4.

4 Cimpoi, Mihai, Mihai Eminescu – The Encyclopaedic Dictionary,Сh.,Gunivas, 2012, p. 437.


Knowing the works of the idealists Fihte and Schelling, the works of the poets Goethe and Schiller and those of the naturalist philosophers, his world view, as a result of this influence, was pantheistic. In Eminescu’s works we see something more than just a sense of nature; we see a cosmogonist revelation, a boundless feeling of loneliness, "pantheistic ecstasy", as noted by G. Călinescu5.

3. The sources and the evolution of "Luceafarul". Eminescu’s

manuscripts prove that the idea of the poem obsessed the poet’s thoughts even since 1869, finding its reflection in dramatic projects, stories, poems, where we see directly or indirectly that the poet worked for the realization of his masterpiece during his whole creative life. Otherwise speaking, "Luceafarul" is a synthesis of lyrical opera of Eminescu, in which are rediscovered all the topics, categories and existential symbols. A German politician and writer, Rihard Kunisch, after his travels, published the volume Bukarest und Istanbul in 1861, which included Wallachian tales Das Mädchenimgoldenen Garten – The Girl in the Golden Garden and Jungfrau ohneKörper – The Virgin without Body which were harnessed by Eminescu, constituting the thematic support of the poem "Luceafarul". During the period 1874-1876, Eminescu wrote two own versions based on the theme of the legends “The Girl in the Golden Garden” and Miron and the Beauty Without Body. Yet he saw something more in the fable of these folk creations. One of the poets manuscript note remained unknown for a long time. In this note he explains the genesis and the allegoric signification of his poem: “This is the tale. And the allegorical significance that I gave to it is that: if the genius knows no death and his name escapes mere oblivion, on the other hand, on the earth he is not able to make someone happy, neither is he capable of being happy. He has no death, but he has no luck either"6.

The first Russian-language version of the poem appeared in the 1958 collection, Stihi. "Developed by the two authors with uneven artistic experience, having different conceptions of translation - I. Mirimski, a famous interpreter with outstanding achievements in the field of translation from Roman languages (who accomplishes simultaneously several versions of Eminescu's creation) and Iu. Kojevnikov, connoisseur of Eminescu’s language and an admirer of his poetry, but being at the beginning of his translator journey. The translation of “Luceafarul” from 1958 appears to us today as a compromise version, in which were reflected the hesitation of the first steps and the inexpediency - in this case - the collective work”7.

However, considered a pioneering work, the version of Kojevnicov and Mirimski played, undoubtedly, a certain role in the history of recreation of the poem in Russian: it has built the prosodic structure, deciphered some “obscure points” for the foreign reader and defined the nature of the “lyrical characters.”

5 Calinescu, Gheorghe, The Opera of Mihai Eminescu, 2nd vol., Bucharest, 1969, p. 426. 6 Calinescu, Gheorghe, The Opera of Mihai Eminescu, 2nd vol., Bucharest, 1969, p. 227. 7 Loghinovski, Elena, The Universal Eminescu. The Area of Russian Culture. 2nd Ed.,

Bucharest, Vinea Edition, 2000, p. 212.


The second Russian version of "Luceafarul" was drafted in 1968, with the appearance of a new collection of poems by Eminescu. The caretaker of the edition, David Samoilov, signs the new version of the great poem.

D. Samoilov's interpretation can compete today with the most successful translations of Eminescu in Russian. "Of course, an important role played here the rough translation made undoubtedly with great care. However, the surety of the success remains the brilliant intuition of Samoilov, a poet of great and genuine talent"8. The universal knowledge, the brilliant intelligence and the Intuition – the condition sine qua non of the genuine talent as a translator - have played a leading role in this case.

As expected, in the coming years the poem drew the attention of the writers who knew Romanian. The first of these was GrigoryPerov who was at that time the author of the Russian versions of the novels of Creanga and Caragiale, of Eminescu's and Negruzzi’s poetry.

Yet "the lack of the artistic unity doesn’t ensure to Perov‘s version but a modest place in the complex process of becoming a Russian "Luceafarul"9. The ignorance of the ethno-historical reality allowed the translator G. Perov (as well as other translators) to include foreign mythological elements in the interpretation of Eminescu’s poem "Luceafarul" that during the translation process significantly distorted the original text. Even in the first stanza there is a concentration of Russian folkloric formulas that have nothing to do with the content of the poem and complicates the perception of meaning through inappropriate assignments: "В краюпреданийбезчисла, / Давным-давнонаверно / Жила-была, какнебыла / Красавица-царевна"10. We translate in Romanian: In a country with innumerable legends, / In the old days, probably / Once upon a time, though never was / A beautiful daughter of the Tsar.

Comparing with the original: Once upon a time like in the fairy tales, / There was as never before, / Of great, royal kinsfolk, / A very beautiful girl. The translation of this stanza, as noted, is a mere imitation of the archaic manner of the Romanian tale by using the clichés of Russian folklore.

In the same sense - as a stage in the arduous but alluring road toward reincarnation of "Luceafarul" on the Russian soil must be regarded, in our opinion, the text signed in 1979 by Yuri Kojevnikov.

The new version made by Alexander Brodsky appears in the collection of 1981 in Chisinau. This version is based "on the plenary reproduction of all the stylistic registers, whose harmonious fusion manufactures a new hypostasis of the symphonic sonority of the original. The original formula is equated, marking the fairytale character of the story that will follow"11.


Bucharest, Vinea Edition, 2000, p. 218. 9 Loghinovski, Elena, The Universal Eminescu. The Area of Russian Culture. 2nd edition,

Bucharest, Vinea Edition, 2000, p. 226. 10 Eminescu, Michail, Evening Star. Translations into Russian by Yu.Kojevnikov, G.Perov, D.

Samoilov, A. Brodsky, Chisinau, “Literature artistic”, 1989, p. 40. 11 Loghinovski, Elena, The Universal Eminescu. The Area of Russian Culture. 2nd edition,

Bucharest, Vinea Edition, 2000, p. 230.


Brodski’s translation is oriented openly and firmly to a certain receptor – the Russian reader of the 20th century, who "assimilated" in a great measure the European literature of the last century, but still knows too little of Eminescu.

Right this attitude, free and audacious, confers to the work of the translator a really creative character and transforms the fifth Russian version of "Luceafărul" in a modern text, able to meet the requirements of a reader at the end of the 20th century12.

In the article of Dumitru Balan "Eminescu’s Luceafărul in two Russian versions", published in Bucharest in the edition "Luceafarul. Centenary. Jubilee Session of 1883-1983" in 1984, the researcher confronted the solutions offered by Iu. Kojevnikov – I. Mirimski and the version of Alexandr Brodsky and concluded that in many cases "a greater fidelity to the text may be notified in the translation of A. Brodsky"13.

Analyzing the translations of the poem "Luceafărul" in the Russian space, we see the evolution of the interpretation of the text according to the linguistic and spiritual abilities, the knowledge of languages, history and popular culture in fascinating archaic forms, according even to the ideological influences, from the simple imitation of the archaic manner of the Romanian tale in the traditions of the Russian folklore (translated by Grigory Perov in 1975), to mixing the Western romantic forms with foreign inclusions (the translation Mirimcki-Kojevnicov from 1958 continued in the second version of Iurie Kojevnicov in 1979), continuing with an attempt of interpretation of the poem in a deeper psychological manner, but not free of the clichés of the Russian sentimental lyricism of the 19th century (translated by David Samoilov, 1968), supplemented by the contemporary skeptical realism and naturalism (translated by Alexander Brodsky, 1975).

The mobile nature of the masterpiece is confirmed by the manner of translation regarding the understanding Eminescu’s code - the code of a genius.

We don’t need to prove that there is a difference between the recipients of the original and the recipients of the translation. Each group of communicants belong to their own language and culture, namely they have a certain mentality, ethnic psychology, worldview and personal perception. The main purpose of the translation is the evidence of the divergence of perception of one and the same text for the part of different cultures bearers, participants of different communicative situations.

Maybe for the first time we bring to light an interesting fact, and namely, that in the most valued pioneering translation which is widely spread in Romania, the translation of the duet Mirimski-Kojevnikov, there were not translated two stanzas of "Luceafărul", which were replaced by the editor’s word for word translation. Comparing with the later versions, we realized that this was


Bucharest, Vinea Edition, 2000, p. 238. 13 Balan, Dumitru, Eminescu's Evening Star in two Russian versions, in Evening Star

Centenary. The Jubilee Session 1883-1983, Bucharest, 1984. http://limbaromana.md/index.php?go=articole&n=428, p. 9.


not accidental, considering the high level of the professionalism of the translators.

The subsequent versions of Kojevnikov, Perov, Samoilov and Brodsky have shown that these two stanzas of "Luceafărul" were a genuine hardship stone not only in terms of the polysemantism of the word of Eminescu, but also in terms of the rupture between the contemporary positivist spirit and the mythical and poetic swing of humanity.

Each of these translations is of great interest for studying the process of transferring the original text to another linguistic and national soil. The outcome depends not only on the linguistic and stylistic fidelity to the original, but also on the translator's erudition, his creative abilities, the independent worldview, the consideration of the ethnic specificity of the following factors:

1. Every masterpiece is not a permanent form. It turns into a message, floating in time and space, generating independently meanings and finding opportunities for its own representation in any epoch by the dialogue with the appropriate horizons of expectations.

2. The mobile nature of the literary masterpiece is also reflected in the translation with its reciprocal relationships between its own code and that of the author.

In 2012 there appeared the encyclopaedic dictionary "Mihai Eminescu", a

fundamental work of the academician Mihai Cimpoi, who stresses that "At the end of the 20th century and early 21st century the eminiscianism imposed by the ontological dimension of the work of the poet"14. Rosa del Conte remarks in her study "Eminescu a dell assoluto" (Rome, 1958), Eminescu has «an ontological idealism that allows a glimpse on the objective reality of the Universe", "a projection of Being in immensity and abstract"15.

The book of Svetlana Paleologu-Matta from Switzerland Eminescu and the Ontological Abyss (1988), connects the Romanian poet to the phenomenology of Heidegger and Husserl, and also to the modern axiology, especially in the works of Max Scheler were the person is identified with the spirit on his way to Absolute.

"Luceafărul" has been perceived until now as a synthesis of a lyrical opera of the Romanian poet, which lists all the existential topics, categories and symbols he approached both in poetry as well in prose, drama and publishing. The poem was compared to the most representative works of the great romantics: Hölderlin's Hyperion, Moïse of Alfred de Vigny, Lermontov's Demon in which appears the topic of genius.

As Mircea Eliade said: "Knowing Eminescu's philosophical vocation and his romantic origin, we are entitled to grant the symbol and the metaphysics as an important role in the explanation of his poetic work. It is less interesting to find out whether he "knew" or "wanted” to create using certain symbols. The fact is that these symbols, as in any work of a great creator, prove to be ecumenical,

14 Cimpoi, Mihai, Mihai Eminescu – The Encyclopaedic Dictionary, Сh., Gunivas, 2012, p.

436. 15 Ibidem.


therefore valid metaphysically, and no hermeneutics is excessive around them. Regarding to the origin of these symbols, neither the oneiric analysis, nor the amniotic waters does help us much. If the dream presents so many analogies with the myth; we cannot deduct a causal relationship between them. We can say, at most, that the myth as well as the dream is of extra-rational nature that imposes to the spirit with the strength of a “revelation”. Besides, the myth always derives from a very coherent system of symbols; it is, roughly saying, a “dramatization” of the symbol”16.

The analysis of the Russian translation of "Luceafărul" highlights the difference in the interpretation of the poem depending on certain factors of historical and national culture both of the language of the original text and the language in which the text is translated into. In our opinion, the ignorance of the perception of author’s personality and the nature of various aspects of the original text does not allow the translator to follow the authorial concept and keep in the translated text its entire value. The hermeneutical understanding and interpretation of the translated text requires also its historical reconstitution. During the process of translation of a national masterpiece a professional translator is primarily a researcher who even if having a sense of intuition, however, starts with a rational analysis and awareness of the original text, and continues with its thorough perception at the greatest extent. For these reasons it is necessary to conceive an intercultural and inter-linguistic dialogue through the translation. This allows the reader to have the access to a system of values of the both authors and the people whom they represent. In addition, according to the historical context and the place of the original text in a temporal perspective, it is possible to capitalize it appropriately in the space of the language the text is translated into.

REFERENCES Balan, Dumitru, (1984), Eminescu's Evening Star in two Russian versions,

in Evening Star Centenary. The Jubilee Session 1883-1983, Bucharest, http://limbaromana.md/index.php?go=articole&n=428

Calinescu, Gheorghe, (1969), The Opera of Mihai Eminescu, 2nd vol., Bucharest.

Candea, Virgil, (2001), Eminescu - over infinite time (Foreword), Ch., Litera; Bucharest, David.

Cimpoi, Mihai, (2012), Mihai Eminescu – The Encyclopaedic Dictionary, Сh., Gunivas.

Eliade, Mircea, (1992), Master Manole. Iasi, Junimea. Eminescu, Mihai, (1989), Evening Star. Translations into Russian by Yu.

Kojevnikov, G. Perov, D. Samoilov, A. Brodsky, Chişinău, “Literature artistik”. Loghinovski, Elena, (2000), The Universal Eminescu. The Area of Russian

Culture. 2nd edition, Bucharest, Vinea Edition. Rambu, Nicolae, (2008), Barbarie interpretation. The reflections about the

Schleiermacher hermeneutics, In the magazine Romanian Language, nr 7-8.

16 Eliade, Mircea, Master Manole. Iasi, Junimea, 1992, p.324.


IISS TTHHEERREE AA TTIIMMEE OOFF HHAAPPPPIINNEESSSS IINN EEMMIINNEESSCCUU’’SS TTHHIINNKKIINNGG??

GGaabbrriieellaa PPoohhooaaţţăă

[email protected] Abstract: Despite the unjust persistence of a pessimistic interpretation of

Eminescu’s outlook on human existence which is limited in time, the interrogation underlying our study is justified because Eminescu understands the true meaning of time, confronting what is with what was. In Eminescu’s work, the memory calls and requires the return to the place of the happy moment, a return that can always be resumed, the memory signifying a kind of ”Heaven” man cannot be banished from.

Therefore, we intend to analyze those texts of his work highlighting the relationship between time and happiness, an approach that will facilitate the answer to the problem of our article. There is a time of happiness in the Eminescian destiny that is closely linked to the lived moment, whether relating to childhood, nature or love. The time of happiness is, in fact, reducible to the happy moment. Somehow, we could emphasize that, for Eminescu, the happy moment is equivalent to the feeling of cross-temporality.

Keywords: time, existence, happiness, moment, consciousness, eternity,

destiny, love, Absolute (God). The moment Eminescu (1850-1889) symbolizes the entire Romanian

spirituality representing for us “the complete man of the Romanian culture”1. Eminescu is one of the few Romanians whose work was read, superlatively speaking, even by Emil Cioran, considering that he conferreda meaning to our Romanian nation: “Everything that has been created so far in Romania bears the stigma of fragmentation. Except for Eminescu, everything is approximative. None of us has boasted with him. And didn’t we declare him an inexplicable exception for us? What was doing round here the one that even Buddha could be jealous of? Without Eminescu, we would have known that we can be only essentially mediocre, that we cannot overdo ourselves and we have adapted perfectly to our minor condition. We owe too much to the genius and to the turmoil he poured into our souls.”2

Eminescu's philosophy is one of the Being, and for such a philosophy “the scandal” is represented by time. Permanence, immobility: these are the supreme

Professor PhD. Hab., “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, Bucharest. Mihaela Mocanu, translator, “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University,

Bucharest. 1 C. Noica, The Complete Man of the Romanian Culture in the Journal of Philosophy, The

Romanian Academy, Bucharest, no.1-2/2000. 2 E. Cioran, Transfiguration of Romania, Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House, 1999,

p.78.


attributes of the Eternal. Hence the ontologically imperfect character of the existence goods: they are or are not. God does not intervene in history: which is, therefore, its sense? What is the meaning, value, purpose of the painful and triumphant, heroic pilgrimage of mankind in time? What drives man to design plans and ideals for the remote future, when not even the present belongs to him because the future tumbles over him as a threat and, through his fault, the present has already faded away or is already past?

Time and existence are philosophical categories laden with the highest degree of mystery. In the Eminescian creation there is no such theory of time as the ones we meet in Lucian Blaga’s3 or Mircea Eliade’s4 works. But, we can notice that, in Eminescu’s texts, time is the philosophically dominant concept. Everything is related to a certain experience, to a special feeling of time perception: life, happiness, destiny or death. We could say that the ephemerality of time is an obsessive motive that appears in the entire creation, his ruthlessly short lifespan being somehow a confirmation of the cares and suffering caused by the passage of time. From this perspective, with Eminescu time acquires a sole meaning: it makes man realize that he is perishable, what confers sadness to human time in general. Eminescu feels the precarious and transient nature of each and every moment he lived as well as of his whole of life. Time is the place of precarity and unhappiness. It is irreparable and irreversible.5

Eminescu's work is thus imbued with a tragic “metaphysical unrest”6 that it manifests itself as an aspiration to liberation. If in the classical Greek conception metaphysics arose from a sense of wonder towards life, facing the fact there is rather something than nothing, with Eminescu this astonishment is suggested essentially by misery and death (at ethical and ontological level), by deception and betrayal (at emotional, sentimental level), by exacerbated disillusionment and by the unstoppable decomposition of values (in terms of social and political ideals).7

The Happy Moment Eminescu’s work helps us become aware of the human time drama, perhaps

deeper than any other writing about time and Eminescu's suffering has the value of a testimony and a universal truth that includes us all in the same ephemeral destiny. In fact, Eminescu is concerned about the mystery of human temporal condition, which is the core issue of human existence. In Eminescu’s conception,

3 Lucian Blaga, Time Horizons in the Trilogy of Culture, chapter Horizon and Style,

Bucharest, ELU Publishing House, 1969, p.51-62 4 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House, 3rd

Edition, 2013, p. 54-88. 5 Ioan Guţia, The Feeling of Time in Eminescu’s Poetry, Rome 1957. 6 The metaphysical unrest and drama as core of the Eminescian poetry lies at the basis of the

masterly stylistic, formal and content analysis of the now classical study of Rosa Del Conte, Mihai Eminescu o dell Assoluto, Modena 1962, Eminescu or on the Absolute, translated into Romanian by Marian Papahagi, Cluj, Dacia Publishing House, 1990.

7 Roberto Scagno, The Symbolism of Unhappiness and Aspiration for Liberation in Mihai Eminescu’s Poetical Work, Romanian Life Journal , Year XCIII, Jan.-Feb. 1998, no.1-2, p. 9.


the components of lived time communicate with each other and erase the hues of various moments in order to confer time the unique color of happiness. Happiness becomes the common quality of all the parts that make up this time. And in the synthesis of this unique feeling the traces of normal duration disappear. The harmony of the states of mind has unified the lived time. Somehow happiness has made the lived time shrink so much that years seem mere moments, as the same quality of the lived feeling has the opposite power to expand the time so that it seems to us that we have lived a century within a single moment.

During childhood, the happy moment seems to be continuous and can be mistaken for the length of time. It is a continual ecstatic acceptance of the present, a continual elation in front of the world as the child finds it all new and wonderful. The lapse of time seems extraordinarily rapid. The happy childhood years seem short, like the moments. The lived happiness makes the years seem “sweet” moments. The feeling expands the moment so that it is perceived as lasting extraordinarily long. The duration of the moment has become infinite because of its plenitude. The main feature of this extraordinary moment is its depth. One can speak of a victory over time, over the temporal human condition. The idea and the feeling of time have vanished. There is no more past and present. The consciousness of happiness is the only reality. The Ego mixes in the same unity its sensations and memories. What remains is an eternity of happiness. The moment content is happiness: an exhilaration, an elation of the being, which is, practically speaking, the denial of time and, implicitly an oblivion of time within a moment. The happiness of the present moment has a future meaning that prevents it from the natural course of things, placing it above becoming. Herein lies the secret beauty of the moment when time has been transcended.

Such a feeling is not permanent, in the author’s view the perception of time is subject to a radical change once he separated from childhood. Happiness is no longer in the present, but far beyond it. The exit from the present is projected onto the screen of the future as a sort of anticipation in which the poet sees himself as he dreams to be. It is a free and pure movement, a desire “arisen” from the need to escape the present. The poet wants to reach the happy moment. That is a moment of “grace” which is located in an area of pure atemporality. At the peak of happiness, the poet is concerned about time and, secretly, he prays for the happy moment – either moments of childhood or moments lived in the nature or next to the beloved person – to stop so that it may be /captured into eternity. The poet wants to suspend the flow of time and to take a break so that the happy moment will be eternal. The confrontation of forces is based on the contrast between the fatal passage of time and the poet's vain thirst for eternity. This contrast materializes destiny and the temporal human condition as well as the vain attempt to change it surpassing its limits.

But, in most cases, with Eminescu, the happy moment is recalled by memory, by the desire to relieve the past, which gives its shape to the happy moment. It is shadowed by the awareness of the ephemeral things. Mihai


Eminescu's childhood took place in the land of Ipoteşti, where he had his first wonders and his first love. There he met the former paradise of fairy tales, but also the parental hearth oven from Ipoteşti. Encountering difficulties in life and after an exhausting journalist’s work, he will think back, with pathos, of those lands: “Now though even I roamed that country/How could I its charm recall…/Where has boyhood gone, I wonder,/With its pool and woods and all?”8 Eminescu’s astonishment that time passes in spite of all his current happiness is an expression of regret and sadness triggered by the time that passes carrying away the whole richness of our soul. He would like time to stop so that the happy moment may become infinite, eternal. We could say that Eminescu aspires to the permanence of happiness. But, since the happy moment that has barely begun ends in the nick of time, the poet falls back into the misery of the temporal condition. The moment passes and time continues his course impassively.

In this way, Eminescu reveals a new and fatal character of the moment. The moment is never a pure present. Just when it comes into existence, the moment leaves itself, calls for and prevents what follows it. Without any respite, the present calls for the future. Somehow Eminescu sees himself thrown into the Heraclitian flow of things. The moment comes and goes at once. The universal fluidity makes our moment escape us along with other things. Because of this destiny, life seems a “craziness” It is absurd because it ends when it has started. The happy moment is extremely short. “A single moment of happiness before the dark eternity”. A moment that illuminates the night of eternity. This contrast reflects painfully the human destiny. The uniqueness, relativity and transience of happiness contrast with the compact vastness of time eternity.

The passage of the happy moment is characteristic for Eminescu. This aspect of time, full of sadness and fatality has a safe and immediate resonance in our souls, generating regret and nostalgia for the lost paradise.

Time and destiny The theme of time is seen as a super-theme of the Eminescian work, the

favorite theme of the poet-philosopher in almost all texts, both in poetry9 (i.e. Letter I, Gloss, The Years have passed, Return, etc.) and prose (Poor Dionis, The Deserted Genius).10 By analyzing the Eminescian texts, we can notice how the feeling of time has a certain dialectic linked to the author’s life and destiny. Thus, time is perceived both according to the stages in the development of his personality, and in its entirety. Destiny is linked to human time which causes all the lived time, the present as well as the happy moment. This destiny colors and gives time a new meaning. Between the privileged nature of the moment and the precarious and impure being that man is, an ever greater abyss opens, which has

8 M. Eminescu, Poems. English Version by Cornelius M. Popescu, Romanian Book Publishing

House, Bucharest, 1989, p. 40-41. 9 Ibidem. 10 Idem, Poems, Literary Prose, 1st, 2nd vol, Edited by Petru Creţia, after the editions of Poems

and Literary Prose from 1973 and 1977, prepared and completed by Perpessicius, Romanian Book Publishing House, Bucharest, 1978.


always been felt like an obsession. The happy moment is no longer an absolute beauty, but a relative one, a meaning which is conferred by the consciousness of ephemerity. A painful unrest arises from the feeling of the happy moment length discontinuity. Exiled and anchored in the existing moment, the consciousness of the Eminescian genius sees its successive modes of existence passing one by one and breaking loose of its hands. The feeling the thinker of life is experiencing is a heartbreaking one, because it feels how he leaves behind the moment when he becomes one with his ego.

Eminescu is aware that our destiny is essentially linked to the time we live in this world, which is ephemerous, and the happy moment depends on the totality of time (which reduces it to nothing before eternity). The attempt to stop the flow of time to make happiness permanent is futile, the only thing that remains is the return to the present moment. Of course, this present is gloomy because returning to the present entails, in fact, the acknowledgment of the failure to master time, a reduction to a material state, to life from one day to another day. On this plan, all the events of life get a new dimension and a new meaning.

The essential experience of the modern man is that when, separated from the duration of things and from one’s own existence, the human consciousness is reduced to an existence without duration, that is always to the present time. In this way, existence is limited to the moment, which expands from one moment to the moment, and where the past and the future were suspended so that only the current existence remains, the present that appears to be continuous and eternal.11 “We cannot command time to remain still, we cannot make the events go still for several hours us either, so that we can spell them, as they follow their course ceaselessly not caring in the least if we they bring us sorrow or joy . In vain would the minute hand of the clock stand still, time continues flowing by its side and only man, having forever to face today, the eternal present, sets the milestones between things that have gone forever and pins its desires with bright targets, sometimes forever unreachable, on the black horizon of the future”12. Although the passage of time is fast, our minds get tired of accompanying it, go ahead it and overtake the flow of time polarizing its interest around the future, that is around the terminal point of this passage (death). By anticipating the future, the poet feels how he slips back into the past and towards death. In this way, living is feeling oneself dying, living is destiny which is human life itself. The anguish of solitude adds to his destiny, where man feels that he lives, an anguish that comes from the feeling of separating and growing away from nature, a detachment sensitized by the flow of time. Therefore the anguish of solitude is the suffering of being detached from the stability, from the permanence that Eminescu sees in nature and that man misses. He feels that he is abandoned in the power of time that keeps changing us, that makes us transient, turning our life into a flow.

“For all of our lives are like shadows flowing, Eternal is only the river, the river is Demiurge.”

11 Ibidem. 12 Idem, in Time, VII, I, 1, January, 1882, apud. Ioan Guţia, cited works, p.92.


Satire IV13 One can thus understand that, according to Eminescu, the flow is our very

existence. Just like waves, life does not last. Eternal is only the river, he is the Demiurge, escaping the ephemerity that involves everything which is related to time and bears its stigma.

In this approach, time is felt like a feeling rather than an intellectual category, we have thus an emotional time representation of time, which implies passivity and regret. The melancholy caused by the time that passes, by the wear and dissolution of things, by the consciousness of the perishable nature of things is the fundamental feature of the Eminescian creation. Everything breaks down, comes to pieces, perishes. The human time bears the stigma of death. Everywhere, Eminescu sees only the incapacity to be, failure of the attempt to last. The only law is passage. Along with life and the current beauty of the forms of things, fatally occur the signs of ruin and death. Between the start and the end there is no continuity solution for continuity. Everything appears to be, at the very moment of plentitude and perfection, under the domination of time that grinds everything.

Eminescu had a tragic sense of life. Like all those who explore solitude and human pain to their very essence, Eminescu never refuses to accept reality ... And reality, for him, was the human being’s isolation in Cosmos - man is born and dies in absolute solitude, but this solitude of his is populated with dreams, chimeras and disillusions. It is deeply realistic his attitude in his posthumous poem Vainly in Those Dusty Classrooms that Perpesicius dates back to 1880 and whose motive could be: in life, learn what life is. Its beauty, its fragrance its ideal calls, that is the feelings, aspirations, stimuli and impulses that lie at the basis of existence and life urges cannot be learnt either at school or from books:

So live life until you pass, All that suffering amass, And you’ll hear the growing grass.14 This man is not afraid of suffering, does not have the calling of renunciation and

nor does he want to save himself through the stoical apathy of the Gloss15 or on the sidereal distant lands of Hyperion.16 Fully involved and trained in the rhythm of becoming which is loss, but also in that of growth and development, he wants not only to live, but also to live to the full the joy and pain, the beauty and degradation, even if living is thus possible only at the cost of accepting the suffering.

This experience of man who lived life intensely with each of its flames is the one that purifies the artist's sensitivity. Intimately connected to the flicker of existence (good and evil, joy and pain) he will be then capable of receiving the tacit but

13 M. Eminescu, Poems. English Version by Cornelius M. Popescu, cited works, p. 167. 14 Translated into English by Paul Abucean, published by Veronica Şerbănoiu in Parallels,

Poems, Translations on http://blog.ro-en.ro/in-zadar-in-colbul-scolii%E2%80%A6-de-mihai-eminescu.htm

15 Mihai Eminescu, cited works. 16 Ibidem.


incessant germination of Everything: vibrant, but only for him, the voice of silence.17 And, after that, you cannot keep performing it in Schopenhauerian key.

Life is sad, but it deserves to be loved Eminescu reveals the ontological precariousness of life: living means

“learning to die”18. Confronted with the time that passes, only the spectator thinking, the poet’s consciousness remains, feeling independent from the passage of time, eternal. Eminescu understood that he had to live intensely the threatened moment of existence. Happiness should be grasped as long as it possible due to its obsolescence. It is the only thing allowed by the wear (inexorable passage) of time. The durable signs should be extracted from the transient moment before it is too late.

The above assertion focuses, in essence, Eminescu’s idea concerning the sense of life. Love is the sense of existence. Not by mere chance, Eminescu created the most beautiful poems in the Romanian literature, because a genuine creation can arise only from true love. Life is sad because our destiny is ephemerous on earth, but it is worth being loved for the happy moment when the author's feeling is so intense that time no longer exists and the consciousness of ephemerity disappears. We can somehow infer thereof a cold optimism that distinguishes him from Schopenhauer, so often cited as an inspiration source for Eminescu. The Romanian thinker finds the solution, exemplified in texts such as Poor Dionis, Memento Mori, Hyperion19 and so on. The attempt to decipher the equation of the universe problem constitutes an act of gnoseologic and hence ontological rebellion because, like Dionysus from the short story Poor Dionis, Dan assumes a role of God: “time can be supressed in both directions (....) Then everything is possible, and man, to his misfortune, can substitute God”. This identification with the Being comes from the Indian philosophy as Amita Bhose said “the momentary revelation of the hero, that he is God, is linked to the Upanishads thinking (...) the human soul identifies with the universal one”20.

Eminescu's philosophy is determined by the existence of God. The relation with divinity is also present in poems such as A Dacian’s Prayer, Hyperion, The Story of the Emperor Son without a Star,21 the last one being unfinished. “Eminescu is a poet of the absolute and not of the Schopenhauerian nothingness as the cosmic pathos involves symbols and sanctity and, therefore, the absolute, which means that the latter will impose itself to cast nothingness, that was only a usurpation of the absolute.22 Schopenhauer usurped God (the Absolute) while

17 Mihai Cimpoi, Towards a New Eminescu, Dialogues with specialists and translators of

Eminescu’s work from all over the world, Dialogue with Rosa Del Conte, Chișinău, Eminescu Publishing House, 1995.

18 Ode (in antic metre) it opens with the well-known line: “I little thought that I would learn to die”, in M. Eminescu, Poems. English Version by Cornelius M. Popescu, Romanian Book Publishing House, Bucharest, 1989, p.46.

19 Ibidem. 20 Amita Bhose, Eminescu and India, Iași, Junimea Publsihing House, 1978. 21 Mihai Eminescu, cited works. 22 Sergiu Al George, Archaic and universal, Eminescu Publishing House, Bucharest, 1981.


Eminescu keeps searching for him. On his way to the Absolute, the poet threads over death, awakes in the afterlife world, because love conquers death.

Thus, the salvation solution in front of the irreversibility of time is love, respectively poetry (art) sine qua non condition of happiness, while myth and faith are resources or forces of imagination. In connection with the Eminescian aspiration to the Absolutenas eternity, Rosa Del Conte23 remarked in her work Eminescu or on the Absolute that the nature of Eminescu’s religious sentiment was born especially from the aesthetic admiration of the infinite and vastness.

However, even if in Eminescu’s workthe notion “beyond time” remains hidden (“The blind mystery of each thing"), the sense of existence in time identifies, for the thinker, in the effort through which individuals and peoples, trying to achieve all the virtues present in power (“I thought to be an iron law”). While the active man is urged to act determined by an intimate, ontological, and therefore irresistible aspiration towards fulfillment. You must become what you are; it is a call or a threat. Life is a continuous struggle for existence that needs to be borne with love, courage and great faith.

From this perspective, Eminescu remains the absolute landmark of our spirituality. The Eminescian creation fully reflects the Romanian culture. Eminescu is not perceived only as a great poet. He came to be more, much more than that. He appears tous, at his highest, a supreme exponent of Romanian spirituality essence.24 Eminescu is a philosopher, not for the contemplative attitude of his poems, but for the aptitudes of the method that we discover in his thoughts and which reinforces the speculative parts of his work.25 Although the time Eminescu lived in this world seemed to be a mere instant, through his creation, it has turned into a beautiful eternity for us. No “evolution” could ever shadow Eminescu's posterity and, as time goes, the deeper we discover him, the more we realize that he exists, that he is and will be our contemporary in aeternum, and being really “unmatched” he will never harm anyone’s glory.

REFERENCES Al George, Sergiu, (1981), Archaic and Universal (Arhaic şi universal),

Bucharest, Eminescu Publishing House. Bhose, Amita, (1978), Eminescu and India (Eminescu şi India), Iași,

Junimea Publishing House. Blaga, Lucian, (1969), Time Horizons in the Trilogy of Culture, chapter

Horizon and Style (Orizonturi temporale în Trilogia culturii, cap. Orizont şi stil), Bucharest, ELU Publishing House.

Boia, Lucian, (2015), Mihai Eminescu, The Absolute Romanian. The Making and Unmaking of a Myth (Mihai Eminescu, Românul Absolut. Facerea și desfacerea unui mit), Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House.

23 Rosa Del Conte, Eminescu or on the Absolute, Cluj, Dacia Publishing House, 1990. 24 Lucian Boia, Mihai Eminescu, The Absolute Romanian. The Making and Unmaking of a

Myth, Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House, 2015. 25 George Călinescu, Mihai Eminescu’s Work, 2nd vol., Bucharest, Minerva Publishing House,

1970, p.8.


Călinescu, George, (1970), Mihai Eminescu’s Work (Opera lui Mihai Eminescu), 2nd vol., Bucharest, Minerva Publishing House.

Cimpoi, Mihai, (1995), Towards a New Eminescu, Dialogues with specialists and translators of Eminescu’s work from all over the world, Dialogue with Rosa Del Conte, (Spre un nou Eminescu, Dialoguri cu eminescologi şi traducători din întreaga lume, Dialog cu Rosa del Conte), Chișinău, Eminescu Publishing House.

Cioran, Emil, (1999), Transfiguration of Romania (Schimbarea la faţă a României), Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House.

Del Conte, Rosa, (1990), Eminescu or on the Absolute (Eminescu sau despre Absolut), translated into Romanian by Marian Papahagi, Cluj, Dacia Publishing House,

Eliade, Mircea, (2013), Sacred and Profane (Sacrul şi profanul), Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House, 3rd edition,

Eminescu, Mihai, (1989), Poems, English version by Corneliu M. Popescu, Bucharest, Romanian Book Publishing House.

Eminescu, Mihai, (2002), Essential Writings, The Poems published during his lifetime, Fortuna Publishing House.

Eminescu, Mihai, (1978), Poems, Literary Prose (Poeme, Proză literară), 1st, 2nd vol., edited by Petru Creţia, after the editions of Poems and Literary Prose (Poeme, Proză literară) from 1973 and 1977, prepared and completed by Perpessicius, Bucharest, Romanian Book Publishing House.

Guţia, Ioan, (1957), The feeling of Time in Eminescu’s Poetry (Sentimentul timpului în poezia lui Eminescu), Rome, The Collection of the Romanian Library in Freiburg A. Literary Studies I.

Noica, Constantin, (2000), The Complete Man of the Romanian Culture (Omul deplin al culturii româneşti), in the Journal of Philosophy”, The Romanian Academy, Bucharest, no.1-2.

Scagno, Roberto, (1998), The Symbolism of Unhappiness and Aspiration for Liberation in Mihai Eminescu’s Poetical Work (Simbolistica nefericirii şi aspiraţia spre eliberare în opera poetică a lui Mihai Eminescu), Romanian Life Journal, Year XCIII

http://blog.ro-en.ro/in-zadar-in-colbul-scolii%E2%80%A6-de-mihai-eminescu.htm


TTHHEEOOLLOOGGIICCAALL RREEVVIISSIIOONNIISSMM:: FFRROOMM GGOODD TTOO MMAAXXIIMMAALL GGOODD

MMaajjiidd AAmmiinnii

[email protected]

Abstract: The classical monotheistic concept of God has been bedevilled by a plethora of logical and metaphysical paradoxes. Recently there have been a number of attempts claiming that by reforming the traditional concept of God as an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being to a concept of God as the being with maximal consistent set of knowledge, power and benevolence, the monotheistic concept of God can be rescued from contradictions and thereby reinstating a viable version of Anselmian theism. By focusing on omnipotence specifically, the purpose of this paper is therefore twofold: (1) to show the logical impossibility of maintaining an absolute or infinite conception of divine attributes, and (2) to show that even a maximal conception of divine attributes is plagued with the problem of uniqueness of God and a variant of the paradox of omnipotence thus indicating that such reformulations are still beset with dilemmas and paradoxes.

Keywords: Divine Attributes, Divine Uniqueness, Duns Scotus, Anselmian

Thesis, Maximal God, Omnipotence, Thomas Aquinas. Semitic monotheism is often presented as offering a model of divinity where

God is conceived as possessing absolute or infinite power, knowledge and goodness. However, these traditional divine attributes have not gone unscathed and have been subject to various paradoxes and problems. To focus the discussion, consider the case of omnipotence. Intuitively, the core constituents of the concept of omnipotence can be captured by the following two conditions: O is omnipotent if and only if (a) O’s power cannot be subject to any constraint, and (b) O’s power cannot be exceeded by anything else. Yet, the following paradoxes and problems show that these minimum requirements of omnipotence cannot be satisfied and the set of omnipotence remains empty.

Paradox of the Stone: Can an omnipotent being create an immovable stone? Paradox of Free Will: Can an omnipotent being create an agent with free

will? Problem of Mathematical Necessity: Can an omnipotent being change the

truth or falsity of mathematical statements? Problem of the Past: Can an omnipotent being undo the past? What is important to note about these paradoxes – unlike others such as

whether an omnipotent being can commit sin or suicide – is that they are

Professor PhD.,Virginia State University, USA.


apparently the consequences of simple logical observations on the concepts therein. Correspondingly, the traditional theistic response to the problem of omnipotence has been catered towards the logical instability inherent in the concept. Indeed, Thomas Aquinas attempts to disentangle omnipotence from incoherence by claiming that the attribute in question only entails the capacity to bring about anything that is logically possible.1 Thus, in the Thomistic tradition, the integrity of omnipotence is secured at the cost of conceding that even omnipotent beings cannot accomplish the logically impossible. Similarly, following in the footsteps of Aquinas, George Mavrodes declares that problems of omnipotence arise out of setting ‘pseudo-tasks’ – ‘tasks whose descriptions are self-contradictory’ and fail to fall within the realm of possibility.2 Consequently, tasks that logically cannot be performed do not impugn the doctrine of omnipotence and do not set limit on what an omnipotent being can do.

But, simple solutions often turn out to be pseudo-solutions. The ‘logical possibility’ constraint on the concept of omnipotence seems to be a red herring after all, and the fundamental problem is still unresolved. Despite appearances, the Thomistic tradition is only delaying the reckoning as it is bedevilled by at least four problems.

(1) Philosophical Dissentions. The first problem arises from the observation that not all fellow theists agree on the logical curtailing of omnipotence and divine power. Peter Damian, for example, writes in De Divina Omnipotentia.

It is impossible for contraries to exist together in the same subject. Moreover, this is correctly said to be impossible if one refers to a lack of ability in the nature. But the remark should not be applied to the Divine Majesty. For the one from whom nature takes its origin, easily removes the necessity of nature when He wills. The governor of created things is not subject to the creator’s laws; and the author of nature turns the natural order according to His chosen purpose.3

In his Ordinatio, William of Ockham also questions the imposition of logical constraint on divine potency:

Things are possible because God can do them. In other words, what God knows to be possible is a consequence of what he knows himself to have done. That is, for God, anything is possible, without any previous logical restriction whatsoever.4

And, he elaborates his conception further by noting that, God Himself or the divine essence is one intuitive cognition both of itself and

of everything else producible and not producible, that is so perfect and so clear that it is also an evident cognition of past, future, and present things …5

1 See, for example, his Summa Contra Gentiles, tr. James F. Anderson, Notre Dame, IN:

University of Notre Dame Press, 1975, Book II, Chapter 25. 2 George Mavrodes, ‘Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence’, The Philosophical Review, 72:

221-3, 1963. 3 T.J. Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century, Leiden: Brill, 1996, pp.

37-8. 4 Marily McCord Adams, William Ockham, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,

1990. 5 Ibid.


(2) Challenging the Charge of Self-Contradiction. The second objection that may be levelled against the Thomistic manoeuvre is the observation that strictly speaking the descriptions of the first two problems of omnipotence, i.e. Paradox of the Stone and Paradox of Free Will, do not involve any self-contradiction. The questions can be posed vis-à-vis a human being, for example, without generating any self-stultifying consequences. Despite Mavrodes’ protestation that the questions are self-contradictory, the contradiction surfaces only when the demands are pitched against the concept of omnipotence and not in terms of the simple formulation of the tasks in themselves. Although Aquinas and Mavrodes may be right in characterizing a task like ‘drawing a square circle’ as contradictory, asking whether something can create a stone that cannot be lifted is not contradictory. In other words, the contradictions only occur in relation to the notion of omnipotence and as such it would beg the question if the problems are dismissed on the grounds of self-contradiction. The tasks qua tasks are certainly devoid of any self-contradiction.

(3) Refining the Logical Limitation Rule. In response to the preceding problem, it may be claimed that the logical possibility restriction is not only intended to exclude logically impossible tasks but also to preclude tasks that are not in themselves contradictory yet involve a contradiction if performed by an omnipotent being. That is, although attributing omnipotence to an entity entails the statement ‘An omnipotent being can make it to be that X in all cases where making-it-to-be-that-X involves no contradiction,’ it does not entail the statement ‘An omnipotent being can make it to be that X where the entity’s-making-it-to-be-that X would involve a contradiction.’ By this further refinement of the logical possibility limitation, one can save omnipotence from falling into the trap of tasks whose descriptions do not involve any contradiction but their very performance by an omnipotent being would embroil that being in contradictory states of affairs.

But, this second layer of logical restriction is not going to alleviate the problem and, indeed, leads to the further erosion of omnipotence by watering down its content to the extent that the concept can be equally applied to all and sundry. Since, as John Mackie rightly points out, any thing can be considered omnipotent if it could only do all that it was logically possible for it to do.6 On this compounded logical impossibility rendition of omnipotence, logical possibility coincides with practical possibility, and in cases of objects whose logical and practical possibilities are considerably limited, the entities in question are undoubtedly entitled to assume the mantle of omnipotence. In other words, where logical possibilities are exhausted by limited practical possibilities, the new logical definition would deem such objects to be omnipotent as they are only required to do what is logically possible for them to do. Moreover, this extra emendation of logical impossibility itself seems to encourage another paradox: namely, it is logically possible that an omnipotent being is not making anything to be!

(4) Other Types of Impossibility. Even if the concept of omnipotence is circumscribed in terms of logical impossibility to avoid the paradoxes of an unrestricted domain of application, still there is at least one other type of

6 John Mackie, ‘Omnipotence’, Sophia, 1: 13-25, 1962.


impossibility that does not fall under the category of logic – namely, mathematical necessity – which creates a problem of its own for omnipotence. According to the Paradox of Mathematical Necessity, even an omnipotent being cannot change the truth or falsity of mathematical statements. The paradox can be satisfactorily handled by the logical impossibility constraint only if one subscribes to some heavy-duty logicism that mathematics in some unequivocal and significant sense is reducible to logic. However, should one happen to reject strict logicism, one would be facing an additional type of necessity, viz. mathematical necessity, that cannot be circumvented by just imposing the logical restriction. One is thus forced to admit one other type of impotency in the concept of omnipotence.

In view of the foregoing logical problems for the possibility of an omnipotent being, one may opt for a restriction of divine power. Indeed, Yujin Nagasawa has recently offered a radical reformulation of the Anselmian conception of God that, he contends, undercuts almost all the existing arguments arising from paradoxes of divine attributes against Anselmian theism at once.7 According to this neo-Anselmian theism, the claim that God is the being than which no greater can be thought does not logically entail the idea that God is omni in any of its divine attributes. Conventionally, Nagasawa notes, the Anselmian thesis that God is the being than which no greater can be thought is taken to entail the omniGod thesis that God is an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being. However, Nagasawa argues that the Anselmian thesis does not logically, as well as biblically8, entail the omniGod thesis, and, in order to avoid the paradoxes besetting the omniGod thesis in one stroke, he recommends the adoption of the maximalGod thesis according to which God is the being that has the maximal consistent set of knowledge, power and benevolence. (p. 586) But, does Nagasawa’s maximal conception of God render the concept immune to paradox?

To set the scene, it should be noted that traditionally Anselmian theism and also the use of the definite article for ‘the being’ in Nagasawa’s own formulation of the maximal understanding of God indicate the uniqueness and singularity of God. In fact, Nagasawa reiterates the monotheism of Anselmian theism when he remarks: ‘Anselmian theism is committed to the idea that God is the only being than which no greater can be thought.’ (p. 595; my emphasis) Against this backdrop, one may raise the following question: Can a maximal God create another maximal God? On reflection, it seems that neither an affirmative nor a negative response to the question can provide a non-paradoxical understanding of God as Nagasawa intended to present with his reformulated Anselmian maximal definition of God. Apparently, like its conceptual predecessors, Nagasawa’s maximal God is bedevilled by its own dilemmas.

To justify this claim, first, it should be noted that there is nothing illogical about the question raised. It sets out a task that can sensibly and without self-contradiction be posed, for instance, to a human being: that is, can a human

7 Yujin Nagasawa, ‘A New Defence of Anselmian Theism’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 58:

577-596, 2008. 8 However, in view of explicit Semitic scriptural statements on divine attributes such as

omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence, this claim of Nagasawa may not hold much water.


being create another human being? Thus, given the logical legitimacy of the question, there are two options open to the maximal God. Either, the maximal God in question cannot create another maximal God, which in that case the reformulation breaches the Anselmian benchmark of theism that God is the being than which no greater can be thought, since one can think of a maximal God that is capable of creating another maximal God. Or, the maximal God in question can create another maximal God, which again in turn would lead to the breach of the Anselmian benchmark since this time it denies the uniqueness and singularity of God as conceptualised by Anselmian theism.

Furthermore, contrary to Nagasawa’s contention that his re-conceptualisation of God ‘undercuts existing arguments against Anselmian theism all at once’ (p. 578; original emphasis), his reformulation is subject to at least one variant of the paradox of the stone.9 Suppose, Max, the maximal God of Nagasawa, wishes to have another maximal God companion and thus creates Maxine. Later, however, there is a conflict between Max and Maxine over the location of a particular stone. Under the circumstances, there are four possibilities:

(1) The stone moves because Max wills to bring it about. (2) The stone stays stationary because Maxine wills to bring it about. (3) The stone moves or stays stationary but not because of either Max’s or

Maxine’s will. (4) The stone neither moves nor stays stationary – it gets destroyed, for

example. Then, against the backdrop of the following statements: (a) There is no logical contradiction in a multiplicity of maximal Gods. (b) Maximal Gods are not required to do the logically impossible. (c) It is impossible to thwart the will of a maximal God. One may conclude that in cases of simultaneous competition between two

maximal Gods, neither can emerge victorious. The only possible resolution is a stalemate. That is, the reappearance of the paradox of the stone in the form of two maximal Gods whose maximal powers are simultaneously thwarted. Thus, even Nagasawa’s maximal God is not immune to the vagaries of the paradox of omnipotence.

However, in defence of Nagasawa, one may attempt to bypass the foregoing problems and paradoxes of the notion of maximal God by questioning the logical possibility of the multiple and simultaneous existence of maximal God. Should one happen to argue against the possibility of a simultaneous multiplicity of maximal God, one would not be able to reinstate the paradox of omnipotence against the notion of maximal God and also to impugn its Anselmian theism. Indeed, historically speaking, there has been a long tradition among Semitic theologians to argue for the ‘unicity’ of God and the impossibility of a multiplicity

9 See, for example, Alfred R. Mele and M.P. Smith, ‘The New Paradox of the Stone’, Faith and

Philosophy, 5: 283-90, 1988.


of divine beings. Accordingly, the rest of the following discussion is devoted to the viability of such a defence for Nagasawa’s new defence of Anselmian theism.

Classically, one of the more influential arguments against the multiplicity of God goes back to the works of John Duns Scotus. Interestingly, the argument is couched in terms of a reductio of a multiplicity of Gods, instead of directly arguing for the uniqueness or oneness of the instantiation or exemplification of the divinity. Duns Scotus’ reductio runs as follows:

Just as an omnipotent being can produce whatever is possible simply by willing that it should be, so also he can impede or destroy everything that is possible by willing that it should not be. But if A is omnipotent, he can will everything other than himself and so, by his will, cause everything to exist. … But if B wills that none of these things should exist, then none will exist. Consequently, if two omnipotent beings exist, each will make the other impotent, not indeed by destroying the other, but because one of his positive will could keep non-existent what the other wills should exist.10

Paraphrasing Duns Scotus, his argument reads thus: If there were two Gods, then their wills will conflict in every case and as such neither will is capable of accomplishing anything. That is, we will be facing the problem of impotence, should there be more than one God.

Thus, armed with this auxiliary argument against the impossibility of multiple Gods, one may be tempted to conclude that Nagasawa’s maximal God may remain immune to the earlier reformulation of the paradox of the stone and retain the uniqueness of God as stipulated by Anselmian theism. However, there are at least two serious problems with Duns Scotus’ reductio for the ‘unicity’ of God. First, it may be objected that Duns Scotus’ argument from the problem of impotence begs the question. For, the observation that the existence of two Gods leads to a stalemate where the wills of both beings will be thwarted does not prove that there cannot be two Gods; it only evinces that in such a world neither will is going to prevail. Consequently, mutual cancellation of wills does not logically entail the impossibility of a multiplicity of God, unless one can offer an independent argument to show that mutual cancellation of wills excludes the existence of one or the other divine being in question. But, that appears to be a tall order if not an impossible one, for logically there is nothing incoherent about the existence of two beings whose wills may cancel one another – indeed, if nothing else, some of our daily interactions are the prime examples of such commonplace cancellation of each other’s will. Hence, one would be justified in dismissing Duns Scotus’ argument from the problem of cancellation of wills as an instance of petitio principii, if not for being a clear case of non sequitur.

Second, even if one does not take any exception to the argumentation of Duns Scotus, the conclusion that there cannot be two omnipotent beings is not much of a solace to someone who wishes to assert the existence of one omnipotent being. From the impossibility of two Gods one cannot conclude the existence of one. For example, from the statement, ‘There cannot be two prime numbers between n – 1 and n + 1,’ one cannot logically conclude that there is one;

10 Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings, tr. Allan Wolter (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1962), p. 90.


indeed, in this case, it is impossible to have any number whatsoever, whether prime or not.

In conclusion, contrary to Nagasawa’s contention, it seems as if curtailing the concept of God to a maximal understanding still fails to deliver an unproblematic notion of God. But, more ominously, such curtailments run the risk of incurring the wrath of traditional theists such as Peter Damian who maintained that any individual keen on putting limitations on God ‘is rather fit for the branding iron.’11

REFERENCES Adams, M.M., (1990), William Ockham, Notre Dame, IN: University of

Notre Dame Press. Aquinas, T., (1975), Summa Contra Gentiles, tr. James F. Anderson, Notre

Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Damian, P., (1978), ‘On Divine Omnipotence’, in Linwood Urban and

Douglas N. Walton (eds.), The Power of God, New York: Oxford University Press. Duns Scotus, (1962), Philosophical Writings, tr. Allan Wolter, Edinburgh:

Thomas Nelson and Sons. Holopainen, T.J., (1996), Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century,

Leiden: Brill. Mavrodes, G., (1963), ‘Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence’, The

Philosophical Review, 72: 221-3, 1963. Mackie, J., (1962), ‘Omnipotence’, Sophia, 1: 13-25. Mele, A.R. and M.P. Smith, (1988), ‘The New Paradox of the Stone’, Faith

and Philosophy, 5: 283-90. Nagasawa, Y., (2008), ‘A New Defence of Anselmian Theism’, The

Philosophical Quarterly, 58: 577-596.

11 Peter Damian, ‘On Divine Omnipotence’, in Linwood Urban and Douglas N. Walton (eds.),

The Power of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 64.


TTRRIINNIITTAARRIIAANN TTRRAANNSSCCEENNDDEENNCCEE AANNDD IITTSS CCOONNSSEEQQUUEENNCCEESS IINN SSTT.. AAUUGGUUSSTTIINNEE

MMiihhaaii DD.. VVaassiillee

[email protected]

Abstract: The author’s paper, Trinitarian transcendence and its

consequences in St. Augustine, is intended to prove that the twelve Articles of the Symbol of Faith, in particular Articles about intra-Trinitarian transcendence, were preceded by writings and controversies between the first two ecumenical councils, which were established primarily the transcendence of divinity in relation to the human being, then the transcendence of Trinitarian divinity and thirdly, the intra-Trinitarian relationship, of Trinity’s hypostases. In these controversies, St. Augustine had a major role.

Keywords: God in being, Trinity, perichoresis, intra-Trinitarian

relationship, Christian heresies. Intra-Trinitarian relations dogma did not appear out of nothing, but was

preceded by writings and controversies between the first two ecumenical councils, which were established, primarily, the transcendence of divinity in relation to the human being, then the transcendence of Trinitarian divinity and thirdly, the intra-Trinitarian relationship among the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity. The method of Christian teaching dogmatic building emphasizes that any assertion concerning the Christian precepts enter into an universe of discourse reducible to the foundation of Christian doctrine which is the Symbol of faith.

Using previous research results1, it is admitted that, in accordance with the early Christian doctrine, the phrase “God the Father” introduces the dogma of the Trinity as “the Father is the first divine Person of the Holy Trinity”2. Trinity dogma does not refer to the fact that there are three Gods - although repeatedly Christians were accused of tri-theism – but, according to Catechismus Romanus, “there is only one true God, eternal, infinite and immutable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: three Persons but one essence, one substance or nature, absolutely simple”3.

Scientific researcher, Institute of Philosophy, Bucharest. 1 Cf. Mihai D. Vasile, Rationalist Tradition in the Patristic Creationism of the First Christian

Centuries, (Tradiţia raţionalistă în creaţionismul patristic al primelor secole creștine), in vol.: Alexandru Surdu (coord.), Mona Mamulea și Ovidiu Grama (eds.), National Symposium “Constantin Noica”, Seventh Edition, “Steps of Reality” (Simpozionul Naţional „Constantin Noica”, Ediţia a VII-a, „Treptele Realităţii”), Târgu-Mureș, 10-11 June 2015, Romanian Academy Publisher, Bucharest, 2015, pp. 151-157.

2 *** Catechism of Roman Catholic Church (Catehismul Bisericii Catolice), Bucharest, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest Publisher, 1993, p. 55.

3 Ibidem, p. 56.


In fact, the correlation4 among the divine Persons is expressed most clearly by St. Athanasius of Alexandria in the Letter on Dionysos, Bishop of Alexandria, in rejecting the Arian heresy: “Each of the names I pronounce, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is indissociable and inseparable from its correlative. I said Father and before adding Son, I signified Him in Father. I added the Son, and even if I had not said before Father, He would have been assumed in the Son. I added the Holy Spirit, but at the same time, I attached from the One He comes from, and the One through He comes from”5.

Speaking about the divinity of the Holy Spirit in the Epistles I, III, IV to Serapion6, St. Athanasius the Great establishes the divinity of the Holy Spirit by Scripture, “through teaching, on ecclesiastical tradition, on the action of the Holy Spirit in the man’ soul itself”, due to the fact that “The Holy Spirit deifies us, through His dwelling in us, makes us participants in the divine nature, He is God Himself so in essence ... He is God of one substance with the Father and Son; He is ⊂μοο∏σιος”.

Examining the relationship between Son and Holy Spirit, St. Athanasius argues that ”the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, «His sanctifying and illuminator power, Who, as it is writing, proceeds from the Father (œκ Πατρ∈ς œκπορε∏εσθαι), for the Son, who comes from the Father, makes Him shine and sends Him, and gives Him». Moreover, as the Son is the Father's own substance, same the Spirit – Who is in the Son and in Which the Son is – is the own of the Son: «If the Son, because He is in the Father, is the own of His substance, it is necessarily the Spirit, Who is from the Father, be also in His substance, the own of the Son (⊗διου ε⎦ναι κατ’ο©σℜαν το⋅ υℑο⋅)». The Holy Spirit is, so, properly, and in His intimate being, Spirit of the Son, His breath in a close dependence on Him. What He possesses is the same as the Son”7.

In this way, St. Athanasius ”is approaching the idea that the Spirit receives his being from the Son ..., when he notes that the Holy Spirit receives from the Son, and that He is not the bond that attaches the Son to the Father,on the contrary, being He Himself in the Word, He finds His being in God through Him”. Joseph Tixeront justifies his arguments on accurate references to treaties and Epistles of St. Athanasius, quoting: “Just as the Son says, «Everything of the Father is mine», so we find that everything is in the Spirit through the Son”8.

Cappadocian Fathers refines Trinitarian doctrine “stating the distinction between ο©σℜα and ™π⊆στασις”9 – that St. Athanasius had not done.”Origen and

4 Cf. Lucian Dîncă, Christ and the mystery of the Holy Trinity in the writings of St.

Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (Hristos și misterul Sfintei Treimi în scrierile Sfântului Episcop Atanasie de Alexandria), Târgu-Lăpuș, Galaxia Gutenberg Publisher, 2015, p. 113.

5 St. Athanasius, 2015, About the Science of Dionysios (De scientia Dionysii), 17, 1-2, apud Lucian Dîncă, op.cit., p. 113.

6 Joseph Tixeront, History of Dogmas in Christian Antiquity (Histoire des Dogmes dans l’Antiquité chrétienne), 3 vol., II. From Saint Athanasiusup to Saint Augustine (De Saint Athanase à Saint Augustin) (318-430), Ninth Edition, Paris, Librairie Lecoffre J. Gabalda et Fils, Éditeurs, 1931, p. 73 ș.u.

7 Cf., ibid., p. 74. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., p 76.


Origenists had given to ™π⊆στασις meaning a person ... Cappadocians admitted Origenist distinction between ο©σℜα and ™π⊆στασις”10. ”So, there are three hypostases in God and oppose each other two by his own features. St. Gregory of Nazianzus indicates exactly what these traits could be: …γεννησℜα, γεννησℜα, or γøννησις and œκπ⊆ρευσις or ϒκπεμψις”11. St. Basil agrees with the first two, and ”believes that the Holy Spirit is known by Son,and with Him have the same substance with the Father”12.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus has, however, in this view, a very happy expression when he says that “the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son”13, but it considers that “it is impossible to determine precisely by what procession (œκπ⊆ρευσις) of the Holy Spirit differs from the generation of the Son. It is sure only that distinguishing features, notions link with their origins and their opposition to each other”14. St. Basil stated in this regard that: “we say that the Father is greater than the Son, He is not by nature, but because we conceive, ideally, the principle as superior compared to that which follows from it. This primacy of the Father is conserved and proclaimed by the Cappadocian theology. The Father is Trinity principle, the link which performs unity through communicating its nature. He is: Πηγ♥, …ρχ♥, αℵτℜα τ↔ς θε⊆τητος, τ∈ α⊗τον, Κυρℜος Θε⊆ς; the other two terms of Trinity are αℵτιατ‡ and returning to the Father”15. What is clear and accepted from the first Synod of 325, is that “the Son is eternally begotten from the Father, not exterior done to the Father, but born from His substance, without dividing this substance, as a light coming out of the home remained perfectly intact. Son is consubstantial with the Father”16. That the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, as His relations with the Son - especially - have been a dogmatic ardent problem, it was reflected in the two special treaties Saints Basil and Gregory of Nyssa wrote them, as in The XXXI Theological Word uttered by St. Gregory of Nazianzus.

In De Spiritu Sancto, St. Basil the Great “though prove the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, avoids to call him «God». He says that, although in order is the third, the Holy Spirit has the same essence as the Father and the Son, He should be considered of a suit with Them (συναριθμε⎥σθαι) and not less than They (™παριθμε⎥σθαι); He should be honored and glorified equally with Them, and not as theirs inferior. He is ⊂μοο∏σιος to the Father and to the Son; He is also God”17. This dogma has become the creed of the Eastern Church (of a Greek language), in a short formula: “In God three hypostases, one substance, one God ... Father unborn, eternally begotten Son, and Holy Spirit proceeded from eternity from the Father through the Son”18.

10 Cf., p. 78. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., p. 79. 18 Ibid., p. 88.


The special issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit put an uncomfortable question, namely: “If the Son has any part in the procession of the Holy Spirit and if this role can be designed either as a mere intermediary by which the substance of the Father - communicated to the Son – is communicated to the Holy Spirit; either as a dynamic principle, participating in active fecundity of the Father and produce with Him and under Him the Holy Spirit”19.

St. Athanasius admitted conception according to which the Holy Spirit being came immediately from the Son. Almost simultaneously, St. Cyril of Jerusalem preached:”«Father gives to the Son and the Son communicates to the Holy Spirit - Πατ♠ρ μŸν δℜδωσιν υℑ⎩ κα℘ υℑ∈ς μεταδℜδωσιν †γℜ⎡ πνε∏ματι»”20. St. Basil stated that “the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, He is like a breath of His mouth; but he is also «the native goodness, natural holiness and royal dignity that emanates from the Father through His First Born, on the Spirit (œκ Πατρ⊆ς)»; the Son is linking the Holy Spirit with the Father. The relationship the Son has with the Father, the Holy Spirit has with the Son. He is the Spirit of the Son, His own (Ädion) Spirit, in which the Son commits everything”21.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus merely says that “the Holy Spirit proceeds (œκπορε∏εθαι) from the Father. Since He proceeds from the Father, then it is not the Father; and as it proceeds, it means that He is not unborn, so He is not the Son”22.

St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote a little treatise, Quod non sint tres dii, which notes that: “What distinguishes among the Persons of the Trinity is their origin, one being the cause (τ∈ α⊗τιον), the other two being caused (τ∈ αℵτιατ⊆ν). However, those that are caused are not accommodated in the same way, because one is immediately (προσεχ®ς) by the Father, while the other is caused by that which is immediately caused (διˆτο⋅ προσεχ®ς œκ το⋅ πρ◊του); and thus there is no doubt that the Son remains Unique Son, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father”23.

In his treatise, De Spiritu Sancto, St. Gregory of Nyssa “compares the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with three flames, the first of which shall communicate the light to the second, by which enlightens the third”24. In these sequences of arguments, St. Gregory of Nyssa effectively admits that “the Son is, in procession of the Holy Spirit, an instrument of the Father acting by virtue of the fact that the Father communicated the being of the Spirit, but acting effectively; as because this communicated causality does not harm the causality of the Father, and do not prevent Him to be first principle of the Holy Spirit”25.

Didymus the Blind, in turn, takes the procession theme of the Holy Spirit and in his treatise, De Trinitate, “focuses on the assertion that the Holy Spirit «proceeds from the Father and reposes in the Son». He added that the Holy Spirit

19 Ibid., p. 89. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., p. 90. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., p. 91. 25 Ibid.


is the image of the Son as the Son is the image of the Father; and that He is the Spirit of the Son, the Word, the Saviour”26.

St. Jerome translated into Latin, among many other works of the Greek Fathers of the Church, St. Gregory of Nyssa treatise, De Spiritu Sancto, where he “manifestly enunciated the doctrine of procession ex Filio: «id est procedens a veritate, consolator manans de consolatore, Deus de Deo, Spiritus veritas procedens. Neque enim quid aliud est Filius exceptis his quae ei dantur a Patre, neque alia substantia est Spiritus Sancti praeter id quod datur ei a Filio»”27.

It is estimated that from the Latins, St. Epiphanius borrowed his doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. He argued that “the Holy Spirit is produced by the Father and by the Son; and although he avoided the word œκπορε∏εθαι - that Scripture does not use it when talking about the relationship of the Son with the Holy Spirit - he clearly retains in his doctrine that which is expressed in this word ...«The Holy Spirit is not Son, but is of the same substance with the Father and the Son»; He is God from the Father and from the Son: œκ Πατρ∈ς κα℘ υℑο⋅. «Christ is believed to be from the Father, God from God; The Holy Spirit is from Christ, or from the Father and from the Son, as Christ says: He proceeds from the Father and will be received from Me»... «Only the Holy Spirit is called [as coming] from the Father and from the Son (…π∈ Πατρ∈ς κα℘ υℑο⋅), the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Spirit of Grace»”28. In all his texts, St. Epiphanius says that “the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. He only maintains the role distinction between the two insufflators in relation to the procession of the Holy Spirit, through the use of two expressions œκπορε∏εθαι and λαμβ‡νει”29.

St. Augustine faced with the Arian heresy, whose crisis was triggered by the Empress Justina, combated the heresy in a public discussion, but he repeated the demonstration on equality of the three divine Persons in his great treatise, De Trinitate, written between 399-422 years, “where there were exposed the relations between the three divine beings, distinct, equal and consubstantial, taking as model the three faculties of the soul - understanding, will and memory”30.

Taking into account all these amendments, St. Augustine “does not start from the Father as the source of the other two, but from the divine nature, one that is simple and that is Trinity. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Subordinationism is so ruined in its base… From this unity and identity of nature, St. Augustine concludes that each of the three Persons is like the others, like the Trinity in its entirety, because each Person possesses all the divine nature and is God ... The divine Persons are relationships that should not be confused with the

26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., pp. 91-92. 28 Ibid., p. 93. 29 Ibid. 30 Bernard Sesé, Saint Augustine (Sfântul Augustin), transl. from French into Romanian by

(trad. din franceză de) Anca Viorica Costa-Foru, in: Bernard Sesé, Paul Aymard, Pierre Riché, Michel Feuillet, Life of the Saints (Vieţile Sfinţilor) Augustin, Benedict, Bernard, Francisc of Assisi, John of the Cross, Bucharest, Humanitas Publisher, 1996, p. 83.


substance or divine nature ... but They are essential to the divine nature, eternal and necessary as the divine nature ... Thus it is said ad Filium, the Son ad Patrem and the Holy Spirit ad Patrum et Filium”31.

It is important to note that St. Augustine was the first Christian dogmatist who theologized rigorously “the procession of the Holy Spirit a Filio, as the fact that the procession action of the Holy Spirit is common to the Father and to the Son, which does not preclude that the Holy Spirit to proceed, principaliter, from the Father, because the Father gives to His Son, together with His substance, His virtue to proceed the Holy Spirit. Regarding how this happens, St. Augustine says this is a mystery that we will know only in heaven”32.

To Christian believers rests love for one another - as defining the fundamental relationship between the divine Persons - although St. Augustine asks rhetorically: “Why was it said: Let us love one another, for love comes from God (I In., 4:7), unless to engage through this imperative the free will asking for the gift of God? This warning, otherwise, would have remained fruitless, if the free will would not have received some love from the beginning, that he might ask himself [the power] to do what it was commanded to him. It is said let us love one another: here is the law; because love comes from God: here is the grace (...). Do not be fooled by anyone, my brothers: we would not been loved God, Himself if He loved us first. It looks very clear what John means when he says: Let us love God, because He first loved us (I In., 4:19). By His Grace, it is given to us to have the love of the law, while the law without grace does not make us than some corrupts («praevaricatores»)”33.

Towards the end of his life, specifically between 428 and 429, Saint Augustine wrote - while working at Retractationes, and the Answer to Julian of Elcanum - a small opus, Heresies, which, however, has focused his fight for life as a defender of the Christian faith faced with many other heresies of the time, old or in “new clothes”. Heresies remained unfinished because of the death of Augustine, occurred in 430. “Heresies initial plan includes a list of heresies, a refutation of heresies in each hand and a discussion about the nature of heresy. The work, as preserved, is a catalog of eighty-three heresies of the Christian era, from the heresy of Simon Magus and to the Pelagians”34. For the vast majority of heresies, St. Augustine gives a very brief description of errors and their practices, although for the Manicheans, Donatists, Abeloim and Pelagians - St. Augustine had personal knowledge on these heresies - the Bishop of Hippo gives considerable details. The Manicheans Evaluation, for example, “contains about a sixth of the work, while the Donatists, Abeloim and Pelagians still lie together on one sixth of the total text”35.

31 Joseph Tixeront, cited works, pp. 364-366. 32 Ibid., p. 367. 33 Sf. Augustin, About Grace and Free Will (De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio), XVIII, 37-38, apud

Teofan Mada, Blessed Augustine and his Theses (Fericitul Augustin și tezele sale), Sibiu, Agnos Publisher, f.a., p. 127.

34 The Works of Saint Augustine: Arianism and Other Heresies, vol. I/18, Introduction, translation and Notes by Roland J. Teske, S. J.; Editor: John E. Rotelle, O. S. A., Hyde Park, New York, New City Press, 1995, Augustinian Heritage Institute, Roland J. Teske, Introduction, p. 15.

35 Ibidem.


The occasion of writing about heresies arose through “the year 427 or 428, when St. Augustine received a letter from Quodvultdeus, a deacon of Carthage, who asked the Bishop to write a treatise on heresies, for the use by clergy. This Quodvultdeus became bishop of Carthage in 437, and was banished two years later, when Genseric conquered Carthage. In his letter, Quodvultdeus was asking St. Augustine as the breviary contain a list of all the heresies that have existed and still existed in the times of the Gospel, along with the doctrines and their errors about «faith, Trinity, baptism, penance, Christ as man, Christ as God, resurrection, Old and New Testaments, as well as any point in disagreement with the truth»”36.

In the response letter, Augustine states that he complies with the requirement of Quodvultdeus, but stresses that before him such works have been written by Epiphanius of Salamina and Philaster of Brescia, making it more difficult to write such a work, and because that there is not an agreement between Philaster treaty and that of Epiphanius, even in terms of the number of heresies. Thus, for example, Philaster lists a hundred and twenty-eight heresies, compared to only sixty referred by Epiphanius. Not eventually, St. Augustine confesses that he was already working Revisions (“Retractationes”) and responses to the Elcanum Julian's imprecations. In the Preface to Heresies, St. Augustine says he explained “in short, succinctly and summary” the heresies that arose after the passage of Christ on earth, and he was inspired by the work of Epiphanius37.

St. Augustine intended to write a theoretical treatise on heresy with a definition of heresy and schism differences, and other deviations from the true faith, on divine transcendence and its types. But time did not wait, so he stayed only what he wrote in the Preface to Heresies, where he says that “every heresy includes an error, but not every error is heresy. He adds: «what makes someone a heretic may be brought with difficulty in a definition in accordance with all the rules». Such a definition should not be negative; thus, defining heresy as a «rupture» from the rule of faith, is unsatisfactory, because anyone can make a mistake in an endless number of ways”38. The problem of the error of faith is analogous to the informal error in logic or, which is to say that “there must be a complete list of informal errors”39.

In De vera religione, St. Augustine differentiates between “a heretic and he that follows a heretic, saying that the two are totally different, because the first support false opinions, stubbornly, and for the sake of temporal advantage, while the second promotes them, because he is «deceived by a certain image of truth and piety»”40. In respect of the schismatics, St. Augustine states that “there is no difference between the righteous and the schismatic faith, but «only a split in the community»”41. So, when he characterized the Donatists as heretics, St. Augustine stated that: “«a heresy is a sect of people who support different

36 Ibidem. 37 Cf., p. 16. 38 Ibid., p. 19. 39 Ibid., p. 20. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid.


doctrines», while «a schism is a separation between people who support the same doctrine»”42. In the Preface to Heresies, St. Augustine distinguishes clearly that “every heresy includes an error or more which «are contrary to Christian faith and are deceiving other believers because they are named for Christian»”43. As it can be seen, St. Augustine distinguished clearly between schism and heresy, but he also notes that “the transition from schism to heresy is almost inevitable, since the stubborn persistence in a schism quickly reach heresy”44.

The little treatise on Heresies spans over twenty-six pages - very dense - and starts with the heresy of Simon Magus and Menander, continued with the Gnostics, Saturninus and Bazilide; it outlines Nicolaitans, Carpocrats, Cerintians, Ebionites, Valentinians, sethieni, Marcionites, Encratites, Alogi etc. A particular attention should be paid by the honest researcher to those Saint Augustine calls the followers of Theodotion45, who, the first in history, claimed that Christ was a mere man - heresy spread throughout the centuries, from Reimarus, in the century of lights, up to G. W. F. Hegel in modern times and to the Tübingen School.

In the Chapter XXVII, St. Augustine calls the “Cathars” foreshadowing the medieval Cathars. They are also described Sabellians, and Origen as a historical character controversially blamed by Epiphanius, but considered by other commentators as a good Christian on the dogma of the Trinity, and supporting the final salvation of all – “even Evil and his angels”- that St. Augustine does not agree46.

St. Augustine also makes a ruthless analysis Manichees, starting with the person of Mani from his person and to the most disgusting rituals committed by Manicheans, “the elects” to recover light47. Arians, Apollinarians, masaliens are put under scrutiny of Christian truth. Donatists enjoy a special attention, as Tertullianians and chiefest among Pelagians.

St. Augustine’s controversies with heretical doctrines began in his early youth, when he was captivated and even captured by Manicheans. Manichean doctrine is claimed from its founder, the prophet Mani (216-277 A. D., Persian Mani; Μ‡νης or Μανιχαℜος in Greek; Manes or Manichaeus in Latin)48. Mani began preaching in Iran, in the years 240-241, presenting himself as the perfect form of Christianity, “a salvific religion with universal vocation”49. “The base of the doctrine is a radical dualism that confronts always the principle of Good (symbolized by light) and the principle of evil (symbolized by the Dark). Eternal in conflict in the human heart, the two principles must be separated by a rigorous

42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., p. 21. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., p. 39. 46 Ibid., p. 41. 47 Cf. pp. 42-46. 48 Bernard Sesé, Saint Augustine (Sfântul Augustin),transl. from French into Romanian by

(trad. din franceză de) Anca Viorica Costa-Foru, in: Bernard Sesé, Paul Aymard, Pierre Riché, Michel Feuillet, Life of the Saints (Vieţile Sfinţilor) Augustin, Benedict, Bernard, Francisc of Assisi, John of the Cross, București, Humanitas Publisher, 1996, p. 20.

49 Ibid.


moral, which tenaciously opposes the matter, where reigns the Prince of Darkness, and the spiritual domain where reigns the God of Light. Fasting, abstinence, vegetarianism should be practiced by the followers of this religion. Heavily structured, Manichaean Church counted, outside a supreme ruler who had his residence in Babylon, two categories of believers: the elects, entirely devoted to their ideal, and the auditors, whose rule of life was less demanding. Despite numerous persecutions, Manichaeism was spread to China and North Africa, enduring until XIV century”50.

St. Augustine was seduced by Manichaeism as a religion, whose representatives had numerous discussions and to whom he dedicated treaties, but he also had many disappointments, of which the most bitter was the meeting with Faustus in 383, Carthage. These spiritual disappointments, combined with philosophical readings of Plotinus, led Augustine to positions of faith opposing Manichean doctrine and to fierce controversies. Firstly, Augustine realized that “God is spirit. It does not have flesh. Evil comes from man's free will, and not from a superior strength, against whom man could not do anything. Man was created by God in His image; this image is intelligence”51 - which Romeyer called “cogito”52. By intelligence (“cogito”) man is superior to animals. St. Augustine, returned to his mother Christianity, was convinced that “the human spirit aspires, despite the flesh struggles and matter, to union with the divine spirit”53.

St. Augustine dedicated to the fight against doctrinal Manichaeism, numerous treaties, such as:

- Commentary on Genesis, against the Manicheans (“De Genesi contra Manichaeos”: 388-389);

- Contra Faustum Manichaeum (398-404); - Contra Secundinum Manichaeum (405-406); - De natura boni (405-406). The main theme of the Manichees combat is the problem of evil54. Between 400 and 410, St. Augustine was engaged in a fierce dispute with

Donatist heresy. “The origin of heresy began in the time of Emperor Diocletian, in 303 A. D., when the Emperor triggered against Christians one of the fiercest persecution that the Church has endured for ten years, causing the death of many martyrs ... When Diocletian ordered the destruction of the Holy Scripture, several bishops were subjected; they were called traitors («traditores»). Donatus, bishop of Numidia, denounced the attitude of concession of Carthage bishop, Caecilianus, claiming he taught the sacred texts. Donatus became bishop of Carthage by force over thirty years (313-345). Although condemned by the council of Arles (314), Donatism was spread among especially in the rural population and gave Augustine much trouble ... because Donatists claimed to be

50 Ibid. 51 Ibid., p. 46. 52 B. Romeyer, S.J.,The Christian Philosophy up to Descartes (La Philosophie chrétienne

jusqu’à Descartes), 3 vol., vol. II. From the Alexandrians to the Death of Saint Augustine (Des Alexandrins à la mort de Saint Augustin), Paris, Librairie Bloud&Gay, 1936, p. 168.

53 Bernard Sesé,cited works, p. 46. 54 Ibid., p. 73.


the only keepers of the Christian tradition in its entirety. Hence the consciousness of «purity which is found in traditionalist societies». «As for them counting, was the purity of the group in its relationship with God. Just like the old tribe of Israel, this group was favored by a special relationship with God ... From here the Donatist bishops obsessive fear emerged, that if they tolerate the slightest offense in the rigorous conduct and clearly defined ritual, God might divide His Church ... due to their sins»”55.

When Donatists denied the validity of Christian baptism, schism was transformed into heresy, and St. Augustine used all means of spoken word and writing to a fight against it. Thus he devoted to combating the Donatist doctrine a fundamental work, namely De Baptismo (404-406), but on different occasions he wrote:

-Contra litteras Penteliani (401-405); -Contra Epistulam Parmeniani (404-407); -De unitate ecclesiae catholicae (405). The early Christian Church defeated, by the writings of St. Augustine,

Donatism which claimed “chosen people” or the Church of the pures “concerned to maintain their identity in the crowd of the «impures» tainted by the removed guilt of traitors - traditores56. On the 9th of June 411 imperial verdict was given by which it was recognized the validity of Christian baptism, “whatever the quality of the Priest would have been”57.

In the same year 411, St. Augustine began a new confrontation on the issue of grace and free will, with the coming of Pelagius - banished from Rome by the invasion of Alaric –in Carthage, seeking assiduously to meet the Bishop of Hippo for a dogmatic discussion. After the meeting, Pelagius went to Palestine, leaving in his place his favorite disciple, Caelestius.

“Underpinned by a personal interpretation of the original sin, the doctrine of Pelagius call into question the usefulness of baptism. Pelagius argued that man can save himself, without the need of divine grace ... Freedom - free will – is, in his opinion, the essential grace that avoids sin and achieve holiness”58.

St. Augustine wrote against the Pelagian doctrine works as: -De gestis Pelagii (415); -Pro Libero Arbitrio (415); -De peccatorum meritis et remissione. De spiritu et littera; -De natura et Gratia; -About the Baptism of children; -About concupiscence; -About predestination; -About the gift of perseverance; -About the primary sin; -About soul and its origin.

55 Cf. pp. 74-76. 56 Ibid., p. 77. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., pp. 78-79.


After the death of St. Augustine in 431 at the Council of Ephesus, pelagianism has been definitively convicted59.

St. Augustine perfected the doctrinal fight against Pelagianism, because he realized that the doctrine of Pelagius “betrays the whole teaching of Christ, as the Tradition of the Church starting with St. Paul: the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Saviour, the mystery of the Cross, the necessity of baptism”60. St. Augustine replied promptly and firmly: “«one who says” “I do not sin”, that proves ungrateful to Christ Who has saved us. In the multitude of people who descended from Adam all are sick. No one can be saved without Christ's gift»”61.

Thus, the work of Saint Augustine entered eternity. REFERENCES *** Catechism of Roman Catholic Church, (1993), (Catehismul Bisericii

Catolice), Bucharest, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest Publisher, volume, 688 p.

Dîncă Lucian, (2015), Christ and the Mystery of the Holy Trinity in the Writings of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (Hristos și misterul Sfintei Treimi în scrierile Sfântului Episcop Atanasie de Alexandria), Târgu-Lăpuș, Galaxia Gutenberg Publisher, volume, 330 p.

Mada Teofan, f.a., Blessed Augustine and his Theses (Fericitul Augustin și tezele sale), Sibiu, Agnos Publisher, volume, 206 p.

Romeyer B., S.J., (1936), The Christian Philosophy up to Descartes (La Philosophie chrétienne jusqu’à Descartes), 3 vol., vol. II. From the Alexandrians to the Death of Saint Augustine (Des Alexandrins à la mort de Saint Augustin), Paris, Librairie Bloud&Gay, volume, 182 p.

Saint Athanasius, (2015), About the Science of Dionysios (De scientia Dionysii), 17, 1-2, in vol: Lucian Dîncă, 2015, Christ and the Mystery of the Holy Trinity in the Writings of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (Cristos și misterul Sfintei Treimi în scrierile Sfântului Episcop Atanasie de Alexandria), Târgu-Lăpuș, Galaxia Gutenberg Publisher, volume, p. 113.

Sesé Bernard, (1996), Saint Augustine (Sfântul Augustin), Bucharest, Humanitas Publisher, pp. 20-83, transl. from French into Romanian by (trad. din franceză de) Anca Viorica Costa-Foru, in: Bernard Sesé, Paul Aymard, Pierre Riché, Michel Feuillet, Life of the Saints (Vieţile Sfinţilor) Augustin, Benedict, Bernard, Francisc of Assisi, John of the Cross, transl. from French into Romanian by (trad. din franceză de) Anca Viorica Costa-Foru, Ileana Busuioc, Georgeta Hajdu, Ana Maria Mihăilescu, Bucharest, Humanitas Publisher, volume, pp. 20-83.

St. Augustin, f. a., About Grace and Free Will (De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio), XVIII, 37-38, in vol.: Teofan Mada, Blessed Augustine and his Theses (Fericitul Augustin și tezele sale), Sibiu, Agnos Publisher, f.a., volume, p. 127.

59 Ibid., p. 82. 60 Ibid., p. 79. 61 Ibid., p. 80.


The Works of Saint Augustine, (1995), Arianism and Other Heresies, vol. I/18, Introduction, translation and Notes by Roland J. Teske, S. J.; Editor: John E. Rotelle, O. S. A., Hyde Park, New York, New City Press, Augustinian Heritage Institute, Roland J. Teske, volume, 480 p.

Tixeront Joseph, (1931), History of Dogmas in Christian Antiquity (Histoire des Dogmes dans l’Antiquité chrétienne), 3 vol., Ninth Edition, II. From Saint Athanasiusup to Saint Augustine (De Saint Athanase à Saint Augustin) (318-430), Paris, Librairie Lecoffre J. Gabalda et Fils, Publishers, volume, 534 p.

Vasile Mihai D., (2015), Rationalist Tradition in the Patristic Creationism of the First Christian Centuries, (Tradiţia raţionalistă în creaţionismul patristic al primelor secole creștine), Bucharest, Romanian Academy Publisher, pp. 151-157, in vol.: Alexandru Surdu (coord.), Mona Mamulea și Ovidiu Grama (eds.), National Symposium “Constantin Noica”, Seventh Edition, “Steps of Reality” (Simpozionul Naţional “Constantin Noica”, Ediţia a VII-a, „Treptele Realităţii”), Târgu-Mureș, 10-11 June 2015, Romanian Academy Publisher, Bucharest, 2015, volume, 210 p.


FFOOUUCCAAUULLTT''SS PPEERRSSPPEECCTTIIVVEE OONN ““TTHHEE CCAARREE OOFF TTHHEE SSEELLFF”” IINN CCHHRRIISSTTIIAANNIITTYY AANNDD TTHHEE LLAACCKK OOFF SSOOMMEE CCEENNTTRRAALL

EELLEEMMEENNTTSS -- TTHHEE FFAACCEE AANNDD TTHHEE SSAACCRRAAMMEENNTT

GGeeoorrggiiaannaa MMooiissee

[email protected] Abstract: The basic idea of this study is to invalidate the conclusion

reached by Foucault when trying to analyze in Christianity the obligations of truth which concern the self (assimilated to the soul), and namely that by exomologesis and exagoreusis, as Christian techniques, are founded one of the main forms of our obedience - towards others, or towards the system - the binding confession being for him a way of enslaving the individual. By not understanding the essence of Christianity - i.e. lacking the metaphysical dimension, face and sacrament of the data upon which the research is done - it is natural for Foucault to reach to a wrong conclusion, reason for which he is proposing new techniques of care of the self (after the model of the practices of the self in the Romanian Stoicism, specifying that these practices of the self are relational and transversal, not of the community nor individual) as a shield against the domineering systems, with a Humanist mask.

Keywords: power, truth, self, techniques of domination, technique of the

self, exomologesis, exagoreusis. Michel Foucault, remarkable personality of the second half of the last century,

philosopher and historian, interested in the connections which exist between power, truth and self, is trying by his work to know and to show what is the basis of the practices and modern institutions. For a long time (i.e. the time he spent studying the XVIIIth-XIXth centuries), Foucault considered that the subject is merely the product of the techniques of domination, an alienated correlative of the devices of knowledge and power, with the only chance of escape through madness, murder or literature.1 Only starting with the 80s, after the author will analyze the techniques of existence in Greek and Roman antiquity, he will conceive also a relative autonomy of the subject, through techniques of the self.2 In this respect he will say that “the individual-subject only appears at the intersection of a technique of domination and a technique of the self.”

Unlike Kant, who sought to determine the a priori limits of human knowledge, Foucault wishes to discover the historical contingency of ideas who present themselves as irreplaceable truths, and the main purpose is to

PhD. Student at the Faculty of Philosophy, Bucharest. 1 F. Gros, Course Context, in M. Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, translated into

Romanian by Bogdan Ghiu, Polirom Publishing House, Bucharest, 2004, p. 493. 2 Ibidem, p. 509.


show and to decipher what is intolerable at present, by understanding the past.3 The reasoning which he makes it is that in the past something has been wrong - an institution, a discipline, a social practice - which was presented as the best option and which poisons also the present. The philosopher's conclusion is that what we live now should not be taken as a necessity and it is not a necessity, in that the past has managed certain situations in a certain way.

Foucault develops in the years 1980-82, within the classes held at the Collège de France, a project for what is desired to be a history of the truth for Western thought, starting from the age of classical antiquity and up to modernity (in order to explain it), questioning on the ways by which subject has access to the truth.

Since ancient times, the Greeks were concerned to endow themselves with an art of living - tekhnê tou biou4 - art which to prepare them to cope with the most unexpected situations, and over the centuries this tekhnê has embraced forms of the most varied. Since the classical age, the care of the self appears as the one that will occupy in full this field, and in this respect, Foucault has in view the existence of a series of practices which may be called “The Care of the Self” (which always needs to pass through a relation with another - the master5) and which, by applying them on the subject would allow him to reach the truth. Therefore it is necessary to develop a hermeneutic bridge in order to explain these old forms of the care of the self, and Foucault attempts an analysis of existing practices and of the way in which they were applied, establishing the existence of three successive historical models: the Socratic-Platonic, Hellenistic and Christian, each with its own type of referring to the subject in relation to truth.6

In his analysis, Foucault starts from the Delphic precept “gnôthi seauton - know yourself”, which entered into philosophy through the character Socrates, and points out on the fact that this is only one of the forms of “epimeleia heautou” - a complex Greek notion, which refers to the care of the self, and that for a long time the first unjustly obscured the importance of the second. In this respect he shows that in the works of Plato, Socrates is presented as being sent by the gods to urge the Athenians to take care of themselves, and that is why he is like the one who wakes up from sleep, reason for which the care of the self may be considered “the first moment of the awakening”7 and not only, it should be just like a thorn that keeps people in motion, a shaping principle. From the Alcibiades dialog we find that the self we should take care of is the soul, and thus we obtain the soul as subject in its irreducibility.8 For Foucault, if we call subjectivation the action of a set of practices (of the self) through which we know ourselves as subjects, then the subject is no longer a principle, but the result

3 G. Gutting, The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, 2nd edition, G. Gutting Publishing House,

Cambridge University Press, 2006, p.6. 4 M. Foucault, cited work, p. 463. 5 Ibidem, p. 66 6 Ibidem, p. 249 7 Ibidem, p. 19 8 Ibidem, p. 63


of a process (of subjectivation), a reflexive fold, and the self is not only a final opera, but also the historic correlative of a technology.

In order to clarify two basic concepts, Foucault makes the difference between philosophy and spirituality, focusing on the fact that the first is a form of thinking which “tries to determine the conditions and limits of an access of the subject to the truth”9 and the second means all searches, drop outs, asceses which allow the subject to be able to accede to the truth. The French thinker emphasizes the three characteristics of spirituality, and namely: the fact that the subject as it is does not have the right and the ability to access the truth, that there should be a movement for the conversion of the subject, of transformation of the latter, of exiting from the condition in which it is - through Eros and ascesis - in order to be able to receive the truth - which brings enlightenment and peace.10

Apart from Aristotle - who represented the exception, the philosopher least interested in spirituality, says Foucault - all Antiquity has blended the philosophical theme of access to the truth with that of spirituality, i.e. of the conditions and changes which the very being of the subject will have to bear in order to be able to reach the target.

Noting that philosophy has had a therapeutic role11 (of care of the self suffocated by worries and dominated by passions) and spiritual exercises have had an existential end, we can say that: the Platonic model aimed to the recognition of what is divine in man and “the shift to a superior reality through reminiscence”12, the model of Hellenistic and Roman culture considered the escape not in a time of immortality, but in this life through the liberation from the ephemeral pleasures and external circumstances of existence13, and the Christian model is based on soteriology, the salvation for eternity - by giving up to the (fallen) self.

The point at which the access to truth occurs only through knowledge (and the conditions imposed by it), without the need for a transformation of the subject's being14, constitutes for Foucault the time when the history of truth has entered into its modern era, when the truth as it is, no longer saves the subject. Considering that starting from Descartes (and then through Kant), the modern subject is a priori able to accede to the truth, its transformation into an ethical issue also, i.e. of some just actions, represents a second step.15 Therefore, what before represented the sine qua non condition for accessing the truth, now ranks second and can be represented by an attitude of non-selfishness in modernity, choice upon which the subject can or not decide, up to a point.

The opposition between the Ancient and Modern subject lies also in the fact that each manages differently16 the concern of the self and the knowledge of the self: the modern subject updates an endless attempt of

9 Ibidem, p. 26. 10 Ibidem, p. 27. 11 Ibidem, p. 102. 12 F. Gros, cited work, p. 513. 13 Ibidem. 14 M. Foucault, cited work, p. 28. 15 F. Gros, cited work, p. 503. 16 Ibidem, p. 506.


the self-knowledge and the ancient one manages concern fulfilling in a certain formula the knowledge also, the attitude being that of rectitude between action and thinking.

In the Hellenistic model with the associated culture of the self, this is a universal value17, but which in fact is not accessible as value than to a few, through demanding practices and sacrificial behavior. Self is constituted thus, as subject of true knowledge and of just action, through the philosophical ascesis, and reference to the world can and should be done as that to a correlative of the self, assuming it as a test.18 So for them, the self is the agent, subject, instrument and finality of salvation, things which Foucault admires and proposes them in a modified form for the modern subject also.

The fact that as a rule, modern subject is not ready under any spiritual form to cope with the leveling and formatting required by the system's power, or of normalisation, as the French thinker says, makes it easy to handle and susceptible to receive without resistance the surrogate types of any kind, offered by power. Then, the solution offered by Foucault is that of promoting new forms of subjectivation, “cultural forms”, “options of existence”, according to the model of practices of the self from the Romanian Stoicism, specifying that these practices of the self are relational and transversal, not of community nor individual.19

In Christianity there is a circular relationship as follows: knowing the truth given in the Scriptures through Revelation can not be acquired except by purifying the heart, and this can only be made through self-knowledge, which needs the Word.20 Knowledge of the self is made only through the care of the self, by clearing illusions and temptations, through research, i.e. it is required an exegesis of the self, following subsequentlly to dispense of this discovered self, because salvation of religious form, unlike the philosophical one, is based in Christianity on a dramatic character of the event, on a relationship with Another, on giving up to the very self.”21 Under these conditions, Foucault will analyze the Christian variant showing what bothers him expressly relating to the cultivation of self.

Following historically after the Platonic, Hellenistic and Roman model, the Christian variant will be through asceticism and monastic movement, with its spirituality mingled in a strict form starting with IIIrd-IVth centuries, the successor of the school of philosophy22 which was nourished by ascetic practices and of what was called the conversion, returning toward the self, turning toward the self. For Plato this was epistrophê23, a deviation of gaze away from appearances and acting according to reminiscence, and for the Hellenistics this was survival balanced in immanence. The Christian conversion is

17 M. Foucault, cited work, p. 179. 18 Ibidem, p. 463. 19 F. Gros, cited work, pp. 524-525. 20 M. Foucault, cited work, pp. 246-247. 21 Ibidem, p. 183. 22 Ibidem, p. 177. 23 Ibidem, p. 205.


known by the term metanoia, and it is a state, a condition of radical change of mind, but also of repentance. Foucault sees the following features for Christian metanoia: the existence of a sudden, historical and metahistorical moment, preceded or not by asceticism, a moment which to change the way of being of the subject; switching from one type of being to another (from death to life, from earth to heaven, etc.), and the rupture that occurs within the subject, the converted self being a self who renounced to himself.24

Foucault based himself heavily on a comparison made by Hadot between epistrophê and metanoia, in order to highlight their opposition: “first is a conversion by turning the soul toward its source and has the awakening as a model, the second expresses a ravaging of the spirit, having in its center death and resurrection, as renunciation of the self to itself.”25

In Foucault's expression, philosophical ascesis helps to the postulation of the self in a hard form and constituted an 'equipment' for the unexpected (paraskeuê), i.e. ensured the subjectivation of true speech and represented not the obedience of the individual to the law, but his binding to truth.26 The Christian Asceticism, with everything that it implies (prayer, the thought of God, reading of the holy texts, meditation, retreat, obedience, humility, guarding the five senses, restraint of all kinds: food, sleep etc, the thought to death, fulfillment of the commandments, cleansing the mind and heart, etc.), it is from an operational point of view different from philosophical ascesis, its role being to potentiate self-denial, using the essential moments of confession - in which the subject is objectivising itself in a true speech, on the basis of humility.

Foucault is interested in Christianity about the obligations of truth which concern the self, but mentioning also the truths related to dogma, which Christianity should have acquired also. Exomologesis (shows both a truth and adherence of subject to truth) for sins (it meant a request of the condition of repentant through justification, ritual, theatralisation, and without meaning the confession of sins but the dramatic recognition of the condition of repentant and sinner27) and exagoreusis (exegesis) are the two forms of practices by which, in the first centuries of Christianity, the subject was exposing truth “testifying, publicly or secretly, against itself”. For Foucault, “The Sacrament of Penance and the confession of sins are quite recent inventions”28 arising within monastic communities (says he, after reading the texts of St. Casian), and unknown to early Christianity, by means of which the subject, in order to receive forgiveness of sins, must make a continuous examination of its conscience, exegesis, to verbalize through open, frank speech, by parrhêsia, the truth about self before a superior. It is a sacrifice of the self,

24 Ibidem, p. 207. 25 Pierre Hadot, Epistrophê et metanoia, dans Actes du XIe congres international de

Philosophie, Bruxelles, 20-26 août 1953, vol. XII, pp. 31-36, apud. M. Foucault cited work, p. 211 26 M. Foucault, cited work, p. 317. 27 Idem, Technologies of the Self - A seminar with M. Foucault, Ed. by L.H. Martin, The

University of Massachusetts Press, 1988, pp. 40-42. 28 Idem, On the Government of the Living, in Michel Foucault Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth,

The Pinguin Press, London, 2000, pp. 81-83.


and in monachism any action according to the self-will is a sin, issue faced also by the director of conscience - which in its turn has a confessor for listening.

Now we can talk about the hermeneutic self which represents a subject in a special report: he must analyze, discover and create a true speech about himself, so it is also a subject that is split morally. For Foucault, exomologesis and exagoreusis are two extremely different forms, which have a major strength in common: you can not reveal without renunciation, and therefore the first form has martyrdom as a model, through which the sinner must kill the self through ascetic maceration, and the second through continuous obedience of the confessor.

In Christian pastorate, the speech of the master is referring to the Revelation, but also reflects his personality, therefore the thought of a tyrannical director of conscience, which must be obeyed as God would, makes Foucault to look preferentially toward the master in antiquity who guided his disciples to the truth through his speech and his life, and the disciples did not need to tell the truth, they even did not need to speak.29

For the reasons given above, the French thinker sees these techniques from Christianity as one of the main forms of our obedience, the binding confession being for him “a way to enslave the individual, requiring him an endless introspection […] and unconditional obedience.”30 And as an example in favor of its arguments, Foucault brings as evidence some documents from the archives of the former Soviet Union, showing how Stalin and the C.C. of the Communist Party took over the model of church consistory, have imposed the self-accusing declarations, and if in the first instance there was the desire of emergence of the new man, which must be helped by encouragements and threats, since 1936 was embraced the “no mercy” policy, a contorted copy of the fact that long ago the Christian was excommunicated, if he did not confess at least once a year.31

Foucault makes sometimes a horizontal analysis as regards Christianity, lacking the transcendental dimension with all its implications, and thus, the rational observations that he makes seem relevant but do not constitute reality. According to what St. Paul is saying to I. Cor 2.14-15, spiritual things are cleared to spiritual people (enlightened by the Holy Spirit), because they seem as being madness to the things of the flesh. The self on which the man must give up is the fallen self, broken32, who before Adam's sin was unified (mind, heart, will and body). By falling, sin has done something so natural to man, that the Scripture has called the sin as being man's soul, and the denial of sin has meant self-denial33, namely the renunciation to the old man for the new man, in Christ.

The Scripture, in Genesis I.26 says that God said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” and the Holy Parents interpret that man, having

29 Idem, The Hermeneutics..., pp. 346-347. 30 F. Gros, cited work, pp. 490-491. 31 James W. Bernauer and Michael Mahon, M. Foucault’s Ethical Imagination, in The

Cambridge Companion to Foucault, pp. 167-169. 32 Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, Ascetic Experiences IV, translated into Romanian by Adrian

and Xenia Tanasescu-Vlas, Sophia Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000, p. 40. 33 Ibidem, pp. 212-213.


written in him the face of God, and after the fall, even in hell, he is not destroyed, but only soiled and distorted, reason for which it may never be about any breaking of the self by way of conversion, but only about a cleansing through repentance (metanoia) and soiling by Sin. The obedience lived in monastic environments has produced to Foucault an unpleasant feeling, but she is after the model of denying the will practiced by Jesus Christ, His Mother, and all Saints, because by disobedience occurred the fall and by obeying the restoration and salvation in Christ.

As for confession, this is the Christian sacrament established by the Lord and revealed to John XX. 21-23: “Receive the Holy Spirit; If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” Here is that the confession of sins together with the unseen part, i.e. forgiveness received by those ordained, there is no human invention, nor late34, only that as being a living body, the Church through the Holy Spirit in a synergistically work with its members, shall develop certain 'techniques' which are not monastic control procedures invented by people, but improvements in the fight against sin.

Of course that a perfect thing can be mocked and applied in perverse forms, guilty is not the model, but the freedom of a man who inclines toward evil. As for the practice of exomologesis, I agree that now it may seem a bit exhibitionistic, we must not forget however that in those times people lived very intensely, it was a time for renouncement or martyrdom, and harsh punishments which Christians assumed were both for forgiving themselves and a form of penitence. Christianity is hard to live and Christians are difficult to handle, therefore, if Foucault would have understood the Christian truth, would have said that the strategy of a system that presents itself as humanist, in order to win before this life model, would use “vilification”!!!!

REFERENCES ***, (1988), The Holly Scripture, Bucharest, Publishing House of the Bible

and Mission Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Bernauer, James W. and Mahon, Michael, (2005), M. Foucault’s Ethical

Imagination, in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, 2nd Edition, Gutting, Gary, (ed.), Cambridge University Press.

Foucault, Michel, (2004), The Hermeneutics of the Subject; Lectures at the College de France, translated into Rumanian by Bogdan Ghiu, Bucharest, Polirom Publishing House.

Gros, F., (2004), Course Context, in M. Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Bucharest, Polirom Publishing House.

Gutting, Gary, (2005), M. Foucault’s Ethical Imagination, in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, 2nd Edition, Gutting, Gary, (ed.), Cambridge University Press.

34 D. Stăniloae, Confession and Repentance in the Church's Past, in Rev. Romanian Orthodox

Church, Bucharest, 1955, Nr. 3-4.


Hadot, Pierre, (1953), Epistrophê et metanoia, in Actes du XIe congres international de Philosophie, Bruxelles, 20-26 août 1953, vol. XII.

Idem, (1988), Technologies of the Self - A seminar with M. Foucault, Martin, L.H., (ed.), The University of Massachusetts Press.

Idem, (2000), On the Government of the Living, in Rabinow, Paul (ed.), Michel Foucault Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, The Essential Works 1, Allen Lane, London, The Pinguin Press.

Ignatius, Brianchaninov, Saint, (2000), Ascetic Experiences IV, translated into Rumanian by Tanasescu-Vlas, Adrian and Xenia, 2nd Edition, Bucharest, Sophia Publishing House.

Stăniloae, Dumitru, (1955), Confession and repentance in the Church's past, in Rev. Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, Nr. 3-4.


PPHHYYSSIICCAALL AANNDD MMEETTAAPPHHYYSSIICCAALL FFOOUUNNDDAATTIIOONNSS OOFF TTHHEE TTHHEEOORRYY OOFF CCOONNCCEEPPTT HHOOLLEESS

AAddrriiaann LLeesseenncciiuucc,,

[email protected]

CCoossmmiinnaa--OOaannaa RRoommaann

[email protected]

Abstract: The theory of concept-holes, proposed in 2012 as a result of

polarizing the previous academicist outset in the field of linguistics (semiotics), communication sciences and cultural anthropology, assesses language (la langue) as a structure of concept-holes, culturally shaped, transmitted to all the members of the linguistic community and filled out by each of them, in the process of learning, with signified content. Outside the academicist conceptions, arisen from the previously mentioned areas of study, the theory polarizes some perspectives with metaphysical origins, resulted from the process of reflective focusing on the nature of real, beyond the physicality of the world (outside it or in its depth). The current paper aims at bringing up these ways of instituting the theory through physical approach – in the depth of substance and field, placing itself interrogatively and comparatively in relationship with an academicist model, in the proximity of metaphysics, therefore -, respectively through metaphysical approach in fact (ontological and epistemological alike).

Keywords: linguistics, physics, metaphysics, theory of concept-holes,

theory of supersymmetry. 1. Introduction into the theory of concept-holes. The new model is

based on the language seen as a structure of concept-holes, possible to be ‘filled’ with signified content acquired through cultural experience. The signified of the signs, perceived as liquefied and culturally shaped, implies the exceeding of the previous conceptions regarding the association of words as solid semiotic elements, with plastic or elastic consistence. The communicative assimilation of culture, achieved through a structure of concept-holes, culturally pre-defined (in cultural patterns of communication), may be associated with a fractal modelling of language, at least in terms of incremental levels of signification in Barthes’ model1. The use of the term ‘matrix’ – meaning the cultural matrix, modelling the structure of holes – is not very appropriate, as long as its ‘very widespread’ within

Assoc Prof / Department of Fundamental Sciences / Faculty of Aeronautical Management / ‘Henri Coandă’ Air Force Academy, Brasov.

Lecturer / Department of Fundamental Sciences / Faculty of Aeronautical Management / ‘Henri Coandă’ Air Force Academy, Brasov.

1 Barthes, R., Elements of Semiology. New York, Hill and Wang, 1967.


the Romanian culture built a different significance and as long as is denotation is a set of abstract structures (algebraic, cultural etc.) that are immutable, that are not the subject of ‘becoming’. This is why the borrowed term pattern, uncommon within Romanian culture, is more useful and may be used as ‘fractal template’, necessary for the compression of a complex image (the reality) in a simple manner (through the association of the linguistic or paralinguistic sign to the expression of reality). Fractal compression refers to shaping the essence, not the form; it refers to patterned-behaviours (to attractors, in mathematical terms) and aims at designing the final construct as a self-reflective construct. The patterned-behaviours can be useful in highlighting the role of the cultural background in the development of meaning and can be the basis of reconsidering the factors with activator or inhibitor role in intercultural communication, due to different life experience and different cultural patterns. Questioning a fractal pattern of meaning and communicative behaviour (both of them culturally connoted) seeks the correspondence of this theory, from the perspective of the Popperianepistemology, with the geometrical approach of the theory of meaning, but at a different extent of generality.

2. Metaphysical foundations. Metaphysical schemes of organizing the

concept-holes structures of language have been discussed inside and outside the academic environment. The metaphysical openness, being more fertile, allowed the exploration of this possibility of understanding language, based on a distinction that dates back to pre-Socratic period: ‘emptiness’ – ‘fullness’. Democritus atomistic theory, initiated by Leucip, opposed the ‘emptiness’ to ‘fullness’ and ‘being(ness)’ to ‘not being(ness)’, the former terms representing the condition/premise of movement and reorganization, the premise of full functionality, that contributed to further configuration of the Aristotelian difference between substance (hyle) and form (eidos)2.

The Romanian cultural area has come up with several possible interpretations of the relation ‘emptiness’ – ‘fullness’ related to language, thought and representations. Very fertile and exploitable in an academic sense, is NaeIonescu`s perspective, who identified a certain emotional orientation on the object in the process of knowing. This leads to understanding the perception and representation based on other explanatory models:

(...) the objects we perceive are not simply recorded in our consciousness, but, on the contrary, our conscience comes to meet objects with certain frames, i.e., our past experience projects outside certain frames, where objects that should be known, are somehow framed, and knowledge itself means to place those objects into a previously known frame3.

Remarkable is precisely this capacity of the being, in Ionescu`s opinion, to

report knowledge to a frame (a matrix, a pattern) knowledge-based constructed –

2 Aristotle, (Metafizica) Metphysics. Bucharest, Gold Encyclopaedic Universe, 2010. 3 Ionescu, N., (1991) [1928-1930], (Curs de metafizică) Lectures on Metaphysics, Bucharest,

Humanitas Publihing House, p. 42.


herein by reference to the individual and cultural being, whose knowledge is again transmitted based on a configuration and structuring frame. Moreover, as Nae Ionescu claims, the question that arises is the ‘match’ between the modified perception grid based on own life experiences (we extend knowledge to cultural life experience, as well, transmitted through habits, customs, traditions, rituals, taboos) and reflected reality. The grid – perceptive cultural matrix that first frame under which linguistic matrix can e configured – is made up of ‘experience’ thrown forward (to understand here previous conceptions and perceptions, direct or indirect ones). Knowledge is achieved through opening to the outside, by ‘depriving us of ourselves’, that particular frame or matrix being later on filled with a content that is not only ours, but is our being. Filling the knowledge grid with signified content means filling it with us. The metaphor of coral atoll fully finds its applications in Ionescu`s perspective:

To understand the cultural matrix, the most suggestive image is the one of coral atolls: an amount of calcareous skeletons, deposited over time in a particular fractal relief. United to each other by calcareous channels, the coral polyps are continuously adapting to the reef-culture predefined relief, merging into it after a long journey. Moreover, during their life, polyps link to their neighbours through bridges of living tissues, and after death are added to the reef-culture, enriching it and allowing other polyps to settle on their own skeletons. This continuous reef development, seemingly chaotic, could be modelled under fractal laws4.

Nae Ionescu's disciple, Constantin Noica5, proposes the most comprehensive

insight to support the theory of concept-holes. With the intention of establishing a different kind of logic – the logic of dynamics, of contradictory, one within the limits of conjunctive meanings exploitation, called logic of Hermes – Noica reconfigures the entire epistemological spectrum. Exploiting the wave-particle complementarity principle, Heisenberg indeterminacy principle, Noicare-establishes the individual`s place in relation to the general frame:

To do justice to the individual, logic of Hermes will start from holomer (individual-general unit), unlike traditional logic, where the starting point is the notion, (the general), or unlike the symbolic one that also starts with a general (the crowd)6.

But this repositioning of the individual/particular in relation to the general

does not elude the principle of order – logic of Hermes is marked by a complex

4 Lesenciuc, A., Linguistic fundamentals of the theory of concept-holes, in Stanca, M. & Buja,

E. Structure, Use, and Meaning.Linguistic Studies, Cluj-Napoca, Scientific Book House, 2012, pp.170-171.

5 Noica, C., (Scrisori despre logica lui Hermes), Letters on the Logic of Hermes. Bucharest, Romanian Book Publishing House, 1986.

6 Roşu, C., (Gândirea ca principiu şi proces formator în logica lui Hermes) Thought as a Principle and Forming Process in the Logic of Hermes, in Surdu, A. (ed.). The National Symposium “Constantin Noica”, (Pagini despre sufletul românesc) Some Pages about the Romanian Soul. Bucharest, The Romanian Academy Publishing House, 2011, p. 263.


order, by an “order with a indefinitely high degree”, and not by chaos (although the laws of complex systems are laws of chaotic systems). The new order, of the part, as reflection of the whole (the laws of the whole), represents an escape from spatial homogeneity logic, inducing, through the iterative preposition ‘întru’7, the inner disintegration. In an excellent interpretation of the paper Scrisoridesprelogicalui Hermes (Letters on Logic of Hermes), through the chaotic systems, especially through fractal iterations, Roşu8 groups Noica`s ideas around attractors from fractal geometry:

Fractal development is a replica of certain rules of a simple unit-form. Forms resulting from each iteration are similar to the initial form, but increasingly complex. It is an increase in complexity that I have encountered in case of modans and secondary crowds. The fractal is a logical situation, namely, one of negation: the initial form is negated by multiplying, but its image is kept, at a different scale, at component elements. But this negation is not complementary, the opposite, the contradictory of A, but A barred, which means it is and it is not A. By the negation logical situation, we understand how the unit and diversity can coexist, how the unit can multiply itself without getting out of the unit form, out of One state. As Noica would say: it distributes itself without dividing. It is a Multiple- One.

That is how such logic, applicable within linguistics – Noica himself being

one of those who exploited language limits in inner inquiry – brings into discussion the reconfiguration possibility, in a structuralist manner, as a sum of differences. This perspective is important, undoubtedly leading the way in setting the concept-holes theory, now also seen through fractal geometry, as long as fractal means, among others, the degree of filling a space. The interpretation from the fractal perspective of Hermes`s logic, while, as Roșu warns us, Noica had not yet come into contact with the substance of Mandelbrot`s theory9, is fundamental in highlighting the role of the part, of the individual, as information bearer (the part being understood here as “informing”). And this individual – in our perspective, the individual in relation to language, with culture – gets in contact with a form that he internalizes, the language form, culturally shaped, and with a complex order, of filling a space, of the concept cell with signified concept, namely an order of a fractal nature. The language hole, hardly modifying in time, remains constant, while the signified content, filling the covering space according to a complex fractal law, grows – that means, pointedly, reflecting the language structure (in use) by appealing to fractal geometry: constant surface, growing perimeter, tending towards. The initial element, the language hole, contains the iterative law in itself – therefore, this is the mathematic image that the closeness that opens takes, in Noica`s terms, or the iterative potential of the preposition ‘întru’.

7 Untranslatable concept in English, denoting both inclusion (in) and inner orientation /

becoming (to, towards, through). 8 Roşu, C. idem, p. 270. 9 Benoît, B.M., Fractal geometry: what is it, and what does it do?, in Proceedings of The

Royal Society, A 423, 1989, pp. 3-16.


3. Physical foundation of the metaphysical design 3.1. The unique field of supersymmetry (SUSY). Based on the study

of Benveniste`s perspective10, there are many similarities between linguistic field and the unique field of supersymmetry from quantum mechanics. The unique field of supersymmetry, generated by supersymmetry dynamics, assuming the change of elementary particles that generate force fields (fermions) into particles that describe force fields (bosons), or, simply said (ad somehow simplistic), the change of matter into energetic field, is identical, in terms of functionality transforming the linguistic content, stored in language cells, into language (langage) that describes a linguistic field of force. The signified matter (simplistically equivalent of fermions) changes itself into linguistic field, into signifiers (equivalent to bosons), in turn able to produce meaning, i.e., they change themselves into signified content. The linguistic field, commonly understood in a simplified manner of an amount or juxtaposition of terms capable of carrying, by simple injective transfer11, meanings, signified matter, actually represents the state that of a region of linguistic space, manifested through the property that a linguistic sign is undergoing a force that would not occur unless it would achieve communication between the actors among which the field is established. It is necessary to distinguish between what Benveniste12 intended to bring into knowledge light by focusing on the lexical field: language is a field bearer, Benveniste reminded, of a mysterious force. This mysterious force, identified in the analysis of language acts with illocutionary force, differs from what is typically meant by the phrases “lexical field” or “semantic field”, having static meanings that converge to designate combinations of words that are part of the same lexical category.

Coming back to supersymmetry theory, it is useful in explaining changes at sub-quantum level regarding the existence of matter in the double role of substance and field, specifically with respect to particles coexistence that describe and generate fields, and their change from one into another. To be more precise, between the quantum field of supersymmetry – a continuum matter-motion – and the sub-quantum environment, some direct, bipolar, intimate connections are achieved through mass carriers. These connections enable the description of a self generative/autopoietic nucleus evolution, as well as the possibility of setting up a cycle of conservation of matter, in its double role of substance and field (see fig.1).

Looking at the granular structure of the field – energy knots mentioned by Weyl after studying the mass-energy relation – we can understand beyond the network structure and the force lines that describe it as well as the continuous transformation of particles that describe and generate fields. Substance changes, at sub-quantum level, into field and the field into substance, giving, as landmark in the analysis of other similar phenomena, the possibility to understand the

10 Beneviste, É., Problèmes de linguistiquegénérale 1. Paris, Gallimard, 1966. 11 Function f: A → B is called injective function (or injection) if, for any two elements x1,

x2, A with the property that x1. 12 Beneviste, É. idem, p.25.


discreet, continuous leap, discontinuity and continuity simultaneously. Synthetically speaking, Saussure’s metaphor of the sheet of paper thatcontains on one side the signifier and on the other, the signified13, can be further studied (and made more complex): the two sign components are to be found apparently on both sides of the sheet of paper. They are on the sides of the Mœbius strip, essentially one and the same side.

sub-quantum environment

the unique field of supersymmetrysubstance motion)( +

motionsubstance

mas

s ca

rrie

rs

Fig. 1 The unique field of supersymmetry 3.2. The linguistic field.If we understand that language (lelangage) – the

energetic, linguistic field, carrier of ‘particles’ that describe the field (proper physical signs) – interact at the subtle level of language with thoughts, that language (lelangage) is a “particles” bearer that generates the linguistic field (communication), and that between these different types of particles there is a continuous relation of mutual transformation – within the model of the supersimmetry field, according to the lines of energetic field, within the linguistic model along with the force lines of language, culturally determined, describing concept-holes – it is easy to understand what is the relation signifier-signified from the new perspective. Thus, we may appreciate, how can thoughts fill with signified content the language alveoli, i.e. how is possible that those deep meanings (modelled not only individually, by life experience, system of values and own Weltanschauung, but also culturally) to get back to signs that are subject to communication cycle and eroding, transforming and changing the alveolar walls of language. The self-generative nucleus of language can be described, in line with the previous model, as follows:

13 Saussure, F. de., Cours de linguistique générale. Paris, Bibliothèque Scientifique Payot,

1972.


language ( )langue

linguistic field

language ( )langage

thought

sign

ific

ance

car

rier

s

Fig. 2 The linguistic field In simple and more explicit terms, language, predicted based on some

cultural patterns, is a mass of dynamic, in motion potentialities. These concept-holes can be shaped after the long action of linguistic field – language (lelangage) changes language (lalangue) and cultural frames by using lexical, morphological and syntactical units in the speech act; in other words, the use of language contributes to changing the cultural frame and, hence, the language thus configured. The individual covers his language-holes (activated by experience in that particular cultural framework) with signified content. This content – content of thought – must pass, as Benveniste sustained, through language, to borrow the language form (i.e. to ‘run’ through its predefined form, through concept-hole that will never fill completely). Explicitly, content thought partially fills (or partially covers) the language holes with signified. What is not previously structured has the role to induce imbalance in the linguistic field and, implicitly, leads to the dynamics of language and culture. These works fully mark the evolution of a culture. Leaving behind what is not formerly structured within an area of latency, previously called14, at Gabriel Stan`s suggestion, inner attic, is not final: signified content that is not previously structured, covers neighbouring holes or erodes new ones and, by changing into “particles” that describe the field, they become modelling factors through language (lelangage). To explain how such a structure reconfiguration flow of concept-holes works, it is easy to appeal to the above-mentioned phrase: inner attic of thought. What will be born in the reader`s mind is different from any predicted cultural structure, and erodes, close to representations, an independent concept-hole.

4. Conclusions. Given the fundamental role of transferring meanings,

being a vehicle of culture whose primary function is communication, the language (le langage) is more than the practice of the language (la langue); even if it

14 Adrian Lesenciuc, Visual Poetry, (Poezia vizuală), Antet Publishing House, Bucharest,

2006, p.7.


partially expresses reality – a reality bearing the pattern of culture and equally shaping it -, it recreates a reality able to refer to the self. Language (le langage) is, as we have observed before, from the proximity of the unique field of supersymmetry, an energetic field, a linguistic one, carrier of ‘particles’ that describe the field (physical signs themselves), and, therefore, it is the highest form of a human faculty expression – that of symbolizing reality through signs. Thus, more than a vehicle of culture, the language (le langage) serves ‘to coagulate’ culture.

After a review of similarities between the linguistic field and the unique field of supersymmetry, questioning the relationships between language and thought, a new model of communication, based on the theory of concept-holes, can arise. This model of communication, valuing the structured and non-structured content of thought, based on cultural prerequisites – the language concept-holes– allows a modelling based on fractal geometry. The fractal iterations applied to a particular communicative act, within a homogeneous community, perceived as replications by the rules of a simple communicative unit-form, lead to a low score of meaning variation in communication, validating some statements of the theory of concept-holes. But this design would be insufficient if we had related only to the academicist foundations and if we had not appealed to the complex interrogative and comparative corpus of metaphysics’ works.

REFERENCES Aristotel, (2010), Methaphysics (Metafizica) (translated by Ștefan Bezdechi).

Bucharest, Univers Enciclopedic Gold (reissue of the edition in 1965 at The Romanian Academy Publishing House).

Barthes, R., (1967), Elements Of Semiology. New York, Hill And Wang. Beneviste, É., (1966), Problèmes De Linguistique Générale, 1. Paris, Gallimard. Ionescu, N., [1928-1930], (1991), Lectures on Metaphysics, (Curs de

Metafizică), Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House. Lesenciuc, A., (2006), Visual Poetry (Poezia vizuală), Bucharest, Antet

Publishing House. Lesenciuc, A., (2012), Linguistic Fundamentals Of The Theory Of Concept-

Holes, in Stanca M. & Buja, E. Structure, Use, And Meaning. Linguistic Studies, Cluj-Napoca, Scientific Book House, pp. 169-186.

Mandelbrot, B.B., (1989), Fractal Geometry: What Is It, And What Does It Do?, in Proceedings Of The Royal Society, A 423, pp. 3-16.

Noica, C., (1986), Letters on the Logic of Hermes (Scrisori despre logica lui Hermes), Bucharest, Romanian Book Publishing House

Roşu, C., (2011), Thought as a Principle and Forming Process in the Logic of Hermes (Gândirea ca principiu şi proces formator în Logica Lui Hermes), in Surdu, A. (Ed.). The National Symposium “Constantin Noica”, Some Pages About the National Soul (Pagini despre sufletul românesc), Bucharest, The Romanian Academy Publishing House, pp. 261-278.

Saussure, F. de., (1972), Cours De Linguistique Générale. Paris, Bibliotheque Scientifique Payot.


JJAACCQQUUEESS RRAANNCCIIÈÈRREE –– FFOORR LLOOVVEE OOFF DDEEMMOOCCRRAACCYY

VViioorreellllaa MMaannoollaacchhee**

[email protected] Abstract: Following the form and substance content of any encyclopedic

endeavor (a first formulation already anticipating the item dedicated to Jacques Rancière in The Encyclopedia of the Fundamental Political Philosophy Works – a fundamental project of the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations “Ion I. Brătianu”, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania – a project which will be finished in 2017 – the present study follows the method of Rancierian dissension in order to point out, in close proximity to the La haine de la démocratie text, the state of democracy. Within the influx of works, studies and commentaries regarding the fate of democracy, any focusing upon Rancière’s perspective would consist in a way of avoiding the categorization or theorization of democratic crises, considering that political metaphors still have politically adequate instruments for denominating “the actual state of democracy”.

Keywords: Jacques Rancière, La haine de la démocratie, critique of

democracy, democracy scandal, democracy - democracies. Jacques Rancière: essential data An important figure within the group picture of French philosophers of

Algerian descent, Jacques Rancière is the architect of a philosophical and political system based upon a correlation of aesthetics, literature, cinematography and an epistemology of emancipation.

An adept of that initiative targeting a definitive separation from dichotomical traditions, and an artisan of emancipation philosophy, involved in eroding those hierarchies with which political philosophy operates, seen in his double instance as theoretician but also a critic1, Jacques Rancière is constantly concerned with dismantling arbitrarily created borders between research disciples and activity domains.

Jacques Rancière is essentially guided, at the beginning of his activity, by Louis Althusser; and consequently advocates the need for suppressing philosophy, with the avowed purpose of actualizing it, as can be inferred from the works of a young Marx (carefully studied by Jacques Rancière). He is also manifestly concerned with the intention of imprinting a permissive process of elasticizing philosophical frontiers – with landmarks in works such as La Pensée sauvage (Claude Lévi-Strauss), Histoire de la folie (Michel Foucault) or Jacques Lacan’s work about psychoanalysis. “The Althusser lesson” represents an

* Scientific Researcher III, PhD., Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations “Ion I. Brătianu”, Romanian Academy, Bucharest.

1 Samuel A. Chambers, The Lessons of Rancière, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.


important step towards tracing Rancière’s philosophical profile, announcing a fracture between it and any humanist and Sartrian Marxist scores, and marks the start of structuralist research endeavors within the domain of active thinking (in movement, we note) inside social forms.

The separation from Althusser’s thinking is obvious in the process of creating a work which avoids both the deployment of new theories and the destruction of old ones, and which deliberately banks upon structuring a plus- value project and promoting a radical pedagogy extracted from denying the existence of categories such as “pure proletarians”, with expected effects in understanding history but also in theorizing the political.

In a Rancière-ian acceptation, politics acknowledges “the existence of contentious data” expressing a conviction that “the whole community shows excesses inside any group or social interest, and none of these groups has the necessary qualifications for governing”. Politics is identified with “the part without a part” as “an equal, universally accessible aptitude”2.

What Rancière offers is in fact a tensional method of focalizing upon dissensions which fragment and redistribute senses, without ignoring objects and spaces seen as formulations of political ontology and found in the symbolism of the worker; and also within an aesthetics of the sublime which underlines a central idea of his work – what qualifies as worthy of being thought about. Insistently debated and commented upon, accepted or criticized, Rancière’s working method is either subsumed to opinions formed by critical readings of Badiou’s and Zizek’s works, or influenced by a firmly delimited attitude towards the constellation of thinkers integrating his ideas - Agamben, Derrida, Lyotard or Negri3.

One should beware of criticizing democracy Hesitating (upon a Romanian translation of the title) between a selection of

grammatical instruments offered by the Romanian language – “of”, “regarding” and “against” – and trying to find the adequate contextual instruments, Bogdan Ghiu 4 clairvoyantly noted that the paper La haine de la démocratie impressed and surprised everyone by becoming a “reference title” in the North American world; focusing upon “the state of democracy” and “its new theories”5

Certainly, the book was imbued with privileged attention, role and motivation; but it also confirmed the quotient of difficult lectures (the few representations it had within Romanian space sanction its elitist and pompous style), and its status as a manifest program “genealogically debating concepts, frames and strategic categories of discussions about democracy”6. In this sense,

2 Truong, Nicolas, Jacques Rancière, „Il n’y a jamais eu besoin d’expliquer à un travailleur ce

qu’est l’exploitation”, in Philosophie magazine, http://www.philomag.com/les-idees/entretiens/ jacques-ranciere-il-ny-a-jamais-eu-besoin-dexpliquer-a-un-travailleur-ce-quest (visited 31.05.2007).

3 Jacques Rancière, La haine de la démocratie, La Fabrique éditions, 2005. 4 Ura împotriva democraţiei (La haine de la démocratie), translation into Romanian and

foreword by Bogdan Ghiu, Cluj, Idea Print & Design publishing house, 2012. 5 Ibidem, p. 5. 6 Ibidem, p. 9.


Bogdan Ghiu repeats the Rancierian exhortation – beware of criticizing democracy – and advises caution when dealing with critical approaches.

In Rancière’s acceptation, democratic scandal (even on a theoretical plan) is nothing new; a first critique of democratic systems (coming from Plato) was fueled by concepts stating that hazardous governing and denial of legitimacy would surprisingly ensure the exercise of governance. If the end of Sovietism is seen as a decisive event, able to deepen the discrepancies between exigencies of an oligarchic world power network and the idea of easily accessible power for everyone, Marxist critique, in disguise, will dress itself up as a critique of democracy itself.

Starting from the cutting- edge observation that “hate directed against democracy” is “as old as democracy itself”, being equivalated, in ancient Greece, with an “invented insult”, with “lawlessness” and, closer to our times, with “actualized violence”7, Rancière offers, in the introductory part of his work, the object, method and purpose of his book, while at the same time confessing “I have nothing in common with those who proliferate the violence of this hatred – we note - thus, nothing to talk about with them”. La haine de la démocratie projects and analyzes, as a nodal point of the debate, “the new hatred directed against democracy”, resumed in the idea that “there exists just one good democracy, that which does not allow the disintegration of democratic civilization”8.

From victorious democracy to criminal democracy remarks from the start - in the perspective of victorious democracy emphasized by titles announcing, in March 2005, the success of both Iraqi elections and anti- Syrian manifestations in Beirut - that the triumph of democracy does not entail just a set of inherent advantages, but also the acceptance of a quantum of disorder 9.

In order to avoid being blocked in a syntagm such as “crisis of democracy” (which elicited interest in the 1975 report signed by M. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and J. Watanaki) one can pinpoint the factor which determines and maintains “a crisis of democratic governance which is nothing more than intense democratic life”. Rancière offers, as a remedy for democracy’s excessive vitality, a return to Pisistratus, via Aristotle, by “aiming for higher purposes” and orienting towards other goals those energies “which are feverishly active upon the public stage”; a solution which has its obverse in citizen indifference towards (even ignorance of) the public good, and in sublimated actions of some governments “called to act upon the demands of society”10.

The refutation and attenuation of democratic vitality would target an easily identifiable double bind placed within that evil which already defines the fundamental character of democratic life; an extended participation of the masses in debates concerning public matters. On the other hand, it is accepted that the good democracy coincides with a capacity to rule and a concept of social life able

7 Ibidem, p. 8. 8 Ibidem, p. 10. 9 Ibidem, p. 11. 10 Ibidem, p. 14.


to correctly assess any excessive collective activity or individual retreat. Hence, we can deduct the signs of a democratic paradox seen as the rule of excess11.

Realizing a parallel between the American perspective upon the crisis of democracy and its French- extraction variation, Rancière notes that, if the first enlists (under the sign of a clash of civilizations) Western- Christian democracy in the ranks of an Oriental- despotic system, the French intelligentsia banks upon a radical reformulation, able to reinstate the formal opposition between a strict democracy- Christianity- Islam relationship, and that of excepted Jewish- type governments.

Impartial and objective, advocating an equidistant position, neither American nor French, Rancière extracts and formulates the principles of antidemocratic discourse from within the rest of “disfigured totalitarianisms” whose attributes already trace a profile of recomposed democracy. The established correspondence between democracy = non- limitedness = society is consolidated through a triple imperative conjunction: 1. democracy has to become a form of society; 2. this form of society is mistaken for the tyranny of egalitarian individuals; 3. mass individual society, identified with democracy, is forced to guarantee the unlimited increase of revenue, a desired objective of any law of logical capitalist economics12.

Written in a Foucaultian manner (with an interest in concepts such as pastoralism, power or police – the last term is reloaded and clarified by Rancière as a defining order of bodies involved in the being’s “sequencing” – seen as a way of existence and obedience, representing not just a “disciplinarization” but also a rule, a configuration of occupied spaces, with their inherent properties of distributed force networks). Politics or the lost shepherd investigates the political, defining it as independent from the model of a shepherd feeding his flock. One banks upon a theoretically inverted highway of senses, a reassessment of significances demanding a return to the “lost shepherd” model, seen as the ultimate expression of democratic analysis, a society of consumerist individuals. The nostalgic introduction of Plato’s shepherd – from The political Man - into the equation can serve as an argument explaining the opposition good governance – democratic governance13.

Plato openly accuses democracy of applying the status of law dominance (opposed to the demands of medics or shepherds) and is clearly against any situations where their virtues would be manifested only in the benefit of those they care for, adapting to the particular and the sample.

Rancière’s opinion is that Plato can be imbued with the quality of inventor of sociological types of reading which define the modern world, a clarification which targets the reality of that state of society in which the egoistical man is the one who rules. Any dissertation upon this theme would state that democracy is, in the vision of logical analysis, a “bad form of governance and of political life”, “a false political regime”, “a bazaar of constitutions, a harlequin”14.

11 Ibidem, p. 15. 12 Ibidem, pp. 26-27. 13 Ibidem, p. 42. 14 Ibidem, p. 42-43.


A diminution (a loss, even) of faith involves the cessation of any mission able to appreciate the authority of filiation as a principle of government, and converts any democratic regime into an anarchistic one. Any government, in order to function, has to acknowledge its own ungovernable character; democratic politics expresses the capacity of governance extended to those lacking any title which would recommend them for this function – a situation attesting to the anarchical institutions of a politics not founded upon natural order.

“Democracy is a political form belonging to another age, unable to suite our age except at the expense of serious rearrangements” states Rancière in his reconfiguration of the profile of democratic man, whom he considers to be “the product of an inaugurating operation”. One has to note here that democracy’s inherent disorder and lavishness must not be seen as unsettling or dangerous symptoms; on the contrary, they prove that politics can effectively come into being when the principle of governance is separated from that of filiation, but continues to be based upon an inherently identical nature15.

Here is the scandal of democracy! Under the slogan: Here is the scandal of democracy! Rancière interprets

echoing signals noted in the politics of those who do accept neither the hazard gods nor destiny’s roulette, noting that, in the acceptation of the police term, both models of governance and authoritarian practices can be based upon a division of places and competencies16.

Democracy, republic, representation relates democracy (a fight for equal rights, targeted against any logical dictate of the electoral system), the republic (an identification of state laws with the values of society, an equivocal term, marked by that tension which includes an excess of politics inside the forms of the political, an educational endeavor harmonizing laws and customs, institutional forms and the social body), and representation (a common, neutral will directed towards particular interests).

Starting from the simplified blueprint of direct democracy – representative democracy (both a pleonasm and an oxymoron) Rancière clarifies the fictional status of democracy and democratic societies, confessing his conviction that there are no democratic governances in existence. In its instance as a non- invented system, representation (the exact opposite of democracy) is, at its origins, a state, an order, a possession, an expression of that willingness demanded by a superior power and which “is not authentic unless it is unanimous”17.

Revealing and enouncing “exactly” the significance and potentialities of democracy, Rancière subsumes to this concept “the juridical and political forms of constitutions and state laws which re not based upon a single logic”. In Raymond Aron’s vision, a pluralistic constitutional regime represents a mixed form of government which can be assimilated to parliamentary democracy or parliamentary systems. The democratic process deploys the action of subjects

15 Ibidem, p. 44. 16 Ibidem, p. 54. 17 Ibidem, p. 60.


who, in the economy of those spaces placed between identities, reconfigures the antagonistic doublings private- public, universal – particular18.

So which would be the reasons and motivation for all this hatred? The reasons of any hatred, although identifying and denominating a single

evil by the problematical terms of the plural democracies, renounces any generalizing sense in order to target and concentrate upon a single hatred; a recent order, structured as a form of confusion affecting the generic understanding of concepts impacting upon the deep significance of an ideological operator which “depoliticizes any problems which belong to public life and transforms them into society events”. Thus one can recommend that any non- legitimate use of the senses of democracy should be regulated, without being minimized or omitted, in a Foucaultian note - a clear equivalent stating that “any battle of words is a battle of things”.

We live in democracies (acknowledging a minimal degree of permissiveness for any representative system declaring itself as a democratic one – through short electoral mandates, a monopoly of the state’s representatives upon the elaboration of laws, an interdiction for state functionaries to be representatives of the people, a reduction of electoral campaigns and all attached expenses to a minimum, and by controlling any mixing of economic powers into electoral processes). But Rancière’s verdict (firmly expressed at the end of his analysis) denies such an affirmation: “We live in oligarchic states” in which “the power of oligarchy is limited by a double recognition of popular sovereignty and individual liberties”19.

As a conclusion, in Rancière’s opinion, democracy is not sufficiently mature, so not yet ready to confront the anxieties of a comfort delivered by “the intolerable egalitarian condition of inequality itself”, confirming that the period of scholarly- judicial constructs including the power of the people within oligarchic constitutions has been superseded, and that politics and science have thus become both retrograde and obsolete.

Formulating opinions similar to David Estlund’s when theorizing epistemic proceduralism and attributing expert responsibilities to any due parties, and amending the intelligentsia’s statute as “specializing in symptoms”, Rancière offers a convincing and well- integrated model addressing a thematic registry which cannot elude studies by B. Manin, A. Barnett, Peter Carty, O. Dowlen or Y. Sintomer. This relaunches an original political philosophy, countering a direction which would offer a simple diagnosis of democracy’s deficiencies. Rancière pleads for exploration, investigation and a crossing of closed fields20, with the obvious purpose of offering both a solution and a model (and less of a treatment) for democracy’s reason of being.

18 Ibidem, p. 70. 19 Ibidem, pp. 80-81. 20 Olivier Pascal Mousselard, «Le philosophe Jacques Rancière: “La parole n’est pas plus

morale que les images”», in Télérama, nr. 3074, December 15th, 2008.


REFERENCES Campion, Pierre, Jacques Rancière et la démocratie. Un livre

d'intervention, http://pierre.campion2.free.fr/cranciere_democratie.htm. Chambers, Samuel A., (2013), The Lessons of Rancière, Oxford, Oxford

University Press. Davis, Olivier (ed.), (2013), Rancière Now, Current Perspectives on Jacques

Rancière, Cambridge, Polity Press. Deranty, Jean-Philippe, Alison Ross (eds.), (2012), Jacques Ranciere and

the Contemporary Scene: The Philosophy of Radical Equality, Continuum. Duvoux, Nicolas, (2006), «La haine de la démocratie de Jacques Rancière»,

in Le Philosophoire, 1/2006 (nr. 26), pp. 129-134. Ebguy, Jacques-David, (2006), «Le travail de la vérité, la vérité au travail:

usages de la littérature chez Alain Badiou et Jacques Rancière», in Fabula LHT (littérature, histoire, théorie), nr. 1, februarie.

Ghiu, Bogdan, (2012), Forward. Democracy Scandal: drawing lots, open political expertise, procedural purism (Cuvânt-înainte. Scandalul democraţiei: tragere la sorţi, expertiză politică deschisă, purism procedural), in Jacques Rancière, Hatred against Democracy (Ura împotriva democraţiei), Cluj, Idea Print & Design Publishing House.

Mousselard, Olivier Pascal, (2008), «Le philosophe Jacques Rancière: “La parole n’est pas plus morale que les images”», in Télérama, no. 3074, 15 decembrie 2008.

Rancière, Jacques, (2009), ‘’A few Remarks on the Method of Jacques Rancière”, in Parallax 52, 15 (3), July-September 2009.

Rancière, Jacques, (2005), La haine de la démocratie, La Fabrique éditions. Rancière, Jacques, (2012), Ura împotriva democraţiei (Hatred against

Democracy), Cluj, Idea Print & Design Publishing House. Todd, May, (2008), The Political Thought of Jacques Rancière: Creating

Equality, Pennsylvania State University Press. Truong, Nicolas, Jacques Rancière, (2007), «Il n’y a jamais eu besoin

d’expliquer à un travailleur ce qu’est l’exploitation», in Philosophie magazine, 31.05.2007, http://www.philomag.com/les-idees/entretiens/ jacques-ranciere-il-ny-a-jamais-eu-besoin-dexpliquer-a-un-travailleur-ce-quest.


HHOOWW DDEEEEPP IISS TTHHEE EEUURROOPPEEAANN CCRRIISSIISS??

MMaarriiaann PPooppaa

[email protected] Abstract: 70 years since the Second World War, the European

construction is confronted to severe political or economic crises, which are far to be settled, at least at short and medium term. All these crises occurring after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty reveal strong persistence of institutional dysfunctions at the European level as well as significant increase of the democratic deficit with a view to the relations between Brussels and the 28th Member states governments. Even though the last European treaty was intended to enhance the democratic life of the Union as a whole, the effects of its application are far to be positive, given the successive economy failures and refugees waves, both having putting Europe in a long and difficult blockage. This article would like to highlight some the main current constraints acting upon EU, which, in the author’s opinion, would affect more and more its political strength over the next period of time, unless member states understand to have a more direct and realistic approach.

Keywords: European Union, construction, Constitutional Treaty, Treaty

of Lisbon, economy, migration, Single Act, Euro, extremism, Turkey, visas. Introduction The European project is the result of a sinusoid route having been, which

was stage to stage developed by the integration or the federalism supporters. We have to remind that the building of the European Community, encouraged by the dramatic situation to which the Eastern states were confronted to after the end of the Second World War,, on one side, and by the United States, on the other side, has been facilitated by the fact that the founding Treaties addressed to almost comparable member states under the terms of democratic and economic issues matters. Although the initial mechanisms and tools have generated an upward functioning of the European Communities until 1972, the opposition between a federal Europe versus a sovereign states Europe, has never been concluded. Considering that the concept of an united Europe has initially been founded on the achievement of a an economic convergence, we have to admit that leaving aside the organization of large popular debates concerning a political Europe, not only on the occasion of the signature of the Treaty of Rome, but also at its main turning point, namely the adoption of the Single Act, was not in the benefit of the European leaders. Moreover, the good results carried out by the EEC in over its first 10-15 years of existence, have not lead to the creation of a political Europe, as it would have been logical.

Lecturer PhD., “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, Bucharest.


During this stage, the role played by the Commission was crucial, in supporting the legislative initiatives and the coordination of the political action.1

Theoretical approach The article does not intend to proceed to a specific analysis regarding the

issues the Union is facing, as they are difficult to be correctly formulated taking into account the frequent and rapid developments. Instead, we would try to underline some general aspects which have not yet received persuasive answers from the national and European leaders, although several engagements and strategies are permanently assumed by them. Also starting from the evidence that legal provisions existing in the primary and secondary law create the possibility of an efficient intervention of the Union, it will be appreciated that the lack of a common political will and of an early involvement of the European institutions are deficiencies which could hardly be further.

I. An unachieved political Union I.1. From Rome to Lisbon EU was born in the context generated by the Berlin Wall’s fall and the spread

of the neoliberal ideas seen as the single option towards the world economic progress, the moment Maastricht, was easily overtaken by the high European responsible. In the period of t1991 - 1992, the citizens were informed in a superficially manner about a number of controversial aspects of the transformation of the European Economic Community into the European Union - the single currency, foreign policy, the transfer of sovereignty. EU Member States adopted the treaty in parliamentary framework, except France and Denmark which have recourse to referendums. While in the first case, the Maastricht Treaty was adopted at a very small percentage; in the second case it was necessary to organize a second referendum in order to get a positive result.2 It is useful to recall what the main opponents to the Treaty reproached to the Union the threat of losing national sovereignty, reflected especially in the need to adopt a single currency. For them, the nation was perceived as something that transcends the idea of country, because only through national feeling it is possible to accede at the supreme dignity belonging to the free men, called citizenship.3 These politicians were of the opinion that a federal Europe was an illusion, since it would not derive from a sovereign state, as in the United States, Mexico, and Germany. Subsequently, the by pass of the transparent debates between Brussels and European citizens on these fundamental issues, mandatory for understanding the nature and objectives of the Union, would deepen the rift for the European project.

Targeted primarily on successive waves of enlargement, the European Union faced an increased advance of the democratic deficit, as a result of the growing distance between the concrete problems of citizens and priorities developed within the Community institutions. Naturally, the founding treaties have become

1 Jean Quermonne, L’Europe en quête de légitimité, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 2005, p. 32 2 EU Treaty was ratified with 51,04% yes and 48,96 no, on September 20, 1992. 3 Philippe Seguin, Speech, French National Assembly, 18 May 1991.


a more complicated reading, by virtue of the fact that original texts were constantly completed with new amendments according to the proper development of the specific EU policies on a voluntary basis. (The only policy included in the Treaty of Rome was the Common Agricultural Policy).

The Treaties of Maastricht - 1992 Amsterdam – 1997 and Nice – 2000, the European Union have replaced the European Communities, as established by the Treaties of Paris and Rome of 1951 respectively 1957, those entities continuing to represent the hard core of the European construction. The legal framework supplemented by policies and forms of cooperation in sensitive areas for the sovereignty of Member States - Common Foreign and Security Policy, joint police and judicial cooperation – had to put in place a political EU. Meanwhile, a Union working on the basis of four then three constitutive treaties generated a chronic lack of readability for the European citizens. By the end of the last century, the European construction, existing upon the transfer of powers from Member States to an entity - the European Union - appeared to be a complicated project for the citizens’ understanding.4.In the general perception, the center of the Union was primarily represented by the Single Market, with a dual dimension: at the interior, rules developed under Community procedures for Member states, enterprises and citizens; and, at the exterior, commercial relations, based on negotiations conducted in this case by the European Commission as a spokesman while the Member States expressed their views and exercised a control upon the Commission. In essence, the European Communities represented an important body more and more heterogeneous, in which there were divergences between national structures, living standards, economic and social policies.5 Under these circumstances, the Community original link which served as basis of the European construction could hardly be found in the European projects, maybe because the political union of the Europe had also become an aspiration especially for its citizens. In these circumstances, Community initial contact led to the construction Europeans are hardly in European projects, perhaps because the political union of Europe had become an aspiration, especially for its citizens. Naturally, questions such as why a European public space does not exist, why the enthusiasm of those who imagined this particular architecture named Union is so little assumed, represented major challenges for the European and national political leaders. Making a Union of 25-27 members supposed, as a prerequisite and mandatory condition, to perform a comprehensive institutional reform.

The pressure created at higher levels of decision imposed more action axis in the direction of making major concept changes by setting up a European Convention on the model already established and appreciated of the Convention that adopted the Charter of Fundamental Rights in December 2000. In order to introduce a real reform, the Convention had to choose between continuing to represent primarily an economic union, or to allow therein and developing a political Union.6 The Constitutional Treaty, the final outcome of the new method

4 European Council, Laken Statement, 14 December 2001. 5 Valery Giscard D’Estaing, Speech, European Convention, 18 October 2002. 6 Idem, Speech on the occasion of the opening of the Convention on the Europe Future, 28

February, 2002.


of approaching the European construction developed by the European Convention, defined with a more political sense the nature of European Union, the objectives, the competences, the institutions, the citizens' rights, the policies and the functioning of the Union a more coherent and adapted to new internal and external challenges to Union level.

The ascertion that EU Union as a whole was not prepared to implement a Constitutional Treaty, insufficiently explained by national and European officials, have diminished the chances of a stronger Europe, capable to respond to the issues arising from a historic enlargement towards East. It is also true that most of the institutional innovations advanced by the European Convention were taken within the Reform Treaty of Lisbon: EU 's legal personality, the creation of a permanent President of the European Council, the establishment of the High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security, a clear separation of powers, the enhanced role of national parliaments, the elimination of the structure of the three pillars, the participative democracy, the extension of the qualified majority voting, the strengthening of the fundamental rights, etc. Overall, the Lisbon Treaty is an acceptable compromise on the Convention’s work, less ambitious but having all the arguments to reliance once again the European project.

The criticism we can formulate regards the political boosting of the European construction which was expressed by the next with lesser long term vision. Maybe, the European leaders feared peoples will reject a broader sharing of national sovereignties. Thus, unlike the Constitutional Treaty, Treaty of Lisbon no longer no longer includes the term constitutional, the terminology changing consequently: the Minister of Foreign Affairs became the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign Security Policy – Common Security and Defense Policy, the terms of law and framework – law, have been replaced by the terms already consecrated regulation and directive. Also, in order to avoid the resistance of some Member States reluctant to give the EU a more pronounced federal nature, all the references at the symbolism adopted by the Constitutional Treaty (the European flag, the European anthem - Ode to Joy by Beethoven) which were intended to mark the collective memory of a certain European tradition, have been taken out from the new text. But these modifications represented a step back from a most powerful message aiming at setting up a Europe build upon unanimously accepted political values and objectives. By mitigating the positive effects evolving from the reference to a Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty actually is carrying over the uncertainty concerning the purpose for which the European Union should continue to work. Also, we realize today, maybe more than in 2007, that in a Europe in search of an identity, a reassertion of the European values, inspired by the legacies of cultural, religious and humanist which were developed by Greek and Roman civilizations as the Convention’s Preamble proposal tried to adopt – par. 2 I- could have been more contributed to the assumption of a common European heritage by the European leaders, thus eliminating the current debates affecting the overall image of Europe.7.

7 Gérard Bossuat, Histoire d’une référence. La référence aux héritages spirituels dans la

Constitution européenne, Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps, Paris, Année 2005, vol. V, No.1, p. 68 / 82


The treaty of Lisbon explicitly mentions the supremacy of the EU law over the national law introduced in the Constitutional Treaty and agreed by all the states joining the EU.8 According to the EU jurisprudence the Treaty and the secondary law adopted by the Union have precedence over the domestic law, although this Declaration has not juridical force. In this way, Member States have engaged in politically to accept the superiority of EU law.

Regarding the democratic life of the Union, the Article 11 TEU stipulates a

general requirement on dialogue with civil society. Also it appears of having specific meaning the provisions concerning:

- Recognition of the importance of dialogue between citizens, civil society associations and the Union institutions (particularly the Commission).

- The introduction of a social clause, which must take account of all social requirements in EU policies.

All this progress gives real content of the European citizenship, which is additional to the national citizenship and does not replace it.

. I.2. European Union is facing political failure The European Communities, primarily built around the single market, did

not have, at international level, an adequate visibility, corresponding to its economical weight. In order to become an important world power, in the context of an accelerated globalization, it was necessary that Union had to play a much a more dynamic role, widely recognized and accepted, which would have allowed it to approach, in addition to its traditional dimension of peace keeping, other issues related to the regulation of cross-border threats, the fight against crime, pollution, climate change, etc.

The period of reflection on the role of European institutions, as it has been materialized by the Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty, was overlapped with the so – called historic enlargement of the Union to the East. In the wake, it resulted that the European institutions have not been strengthened, on the contrary, the transferred to problems were not approached in a unitary way. The deep economic crisis is a possible explanation to this lack of commitment.9 A pertinent analysis on the increasing democratic deficit in Europe would highlight the privileged dialogue developed between national and European elites, ignoring the real problems of societies, and the lack of response to domestic abuse. In this way, Western democracy appears as illusory.10

Notwithstanding, it appears that the blockage of an institutional nature, difficult to overcome, is the sole responsibility of the European institutional crisis to which the politicians have not found the answers as expected. Let us not forget that 0 years ago, the European citizens have expressed their position in favor of a project capable to submit concrete measures to tackle the great challenges acting

8 The Treaty of Lisbon reaffirms the primacy of the communitary legislation in Declaration no.

27 and the opinion of the juridical service of the Council annexed to the Treaty. 9 Andrei Marga, www.cotidianul.ro, 11 mai 2016. 10 Sarah Cayes, Thieves of the State, Why corruption Threatens Global Security, W.W. Norton

/ Company, New York, London, 2015, p.63.


in the beginning of the third millennium as: the need to install an Economic Union and the concerns for a modern and effective social model, the fight against combating trans-border crime, the clear definition of competences between the Union and the Member States which could make Union able to advance in a highly global economic environment. But the answers to the voice of citizens who rejected the Constitutional Treaty in France and Holland (29 may respectively 2 June 2005), determined the further correction and agreement upon a more technical treaty, without introducing the required political impetus. The following period of the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, fully demonstrates that the technical responses to unsolved problems of a political nature became unacceptable for citizens. Indeed, the technocratic discourse can not replace the absence of a clear political vision, as it had happened during the first period of the European project. Therefore, euroscepticism is gaining ground because it is seen as the only solution capable of giving protecting the nation facing economic drama as a result of a permanent crisis and lack of solutions.-.

Building a Europe with two speeds or hard core are real challenges, because the whole assembly is working now without conviction. Even this already mentioned project11 which could affect some of the new member states is only a hypothesis, given the recent developments in Europe, it could be taken later into consideration as the solution saving the functioning of the EU. We must admit that Eastern Europe was not fully integrated. However, the involvement of the EU - 15 in reorganizing the larger European area has not been conducted according to the initial expectations of the candidate states. Instead a balanced dialogue, there have been hesitations or misunderstandings, from both parties. (the more atlantist orientation of the Eastern European states, the opposition expressed by Poland and Ireland on the Treaty of Lisbon, the difficulties regarding the setting up of a European defense army).

The lack of European solidarity began to unfold with the financial crisis in Greece or the immigration flux in Italy, both countries remaining alone towards the major crisis. Consequently, the non – political Europe's current fragility is a reality, even the Lisbon Treaty, creating some conditions towards a reinvented European political action contains important advances).12

A political Union is needed in order to support an economic Union, as the only solution to protect European values and principles on the international stage. Given the diversity of the 28 points of view, it becomes clear that only structured cooperation may allow the development of European defense, a major state independent of NATO, according to a White Paper that sets broad principles of an effective European foreign policy. But foreign policy and defense policy are still in a stage of project, although the Member States have the possibility to give them a more strengthened use. We believe that formulating a clear vision, based on solidarity and firmness should prevail and replace a long period of indecision or inconsistency in terms of defending the European objectives. In this regard, we

11 Francois Hollande, Interview, Le Figaro, 12 January 2013. 12 In the field of the security and defense policy, the EU treaty allows: mutual defense clause

(art. 42 par 7; solidarity clause (art. 222 new title VII); permanent structured cooperation (Art. 42 par 6 and art. 46), establishment of the European Defense Agency (Art. 42 par 9A).


appreciate as positive the adoption of the future security strategy to be presented at the European Council in June 2016, meaning that Member States should agree on a set of values readjusted to the current period, characterized by complex challenges (intertwined fragility institutional, economic difficulties, different demographic trends between Europe and its southern neighborhood, environment in accelerated change). These complex issues are difficult to manage as long as our targets set by the treaties are insufficiently supported by all Member States in conferring coherent action to the Union.

II. Effects of a weaker political Europe II.1. The economic constraints EU didn’t find correct answers since 2008, when the economic crisis had

begun to affect the majority of the 28th member states. In the wake of the Barroso Commission term, charged with promoting rigidity budget and hence the austerity in Europe, hopes were formulated in favor of a significant change in the EU economic policy, having regard the composition of the European executive, becoming capable to reflect the right political weight and ideology across European states. According to the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Parliament is composed from now on of representatives of EU citizens and not of peoples of the States brought together in the Community, as stipulated before, and the President of the Commission is elected on the outcome of the European elections.13 Moreover, the appointment of a Vice - President (Frans Timmermans) responsible for coordinating several sensitive priority areas as energy, competitiveness, Euro and social dialogue, the Single Market and the Euro area, pledged to fulfill the gap between European institutions action and citizens expectations. Unfortunately, the Commission has failed so far to eliminate uncertainty on the economic growth because the Junker Plan didn’t succeed to give impetus to the investments in Europe, practically continuing the same austerity rules. Hence a legitimate question should be clarified: how could the relation between Brussels and member States function, if a political Commission is facing national governments of other ideology? Among the reasons explaining the current lack of coherence we put the decision to give up at one of the major innovations of the European Convention: the reduced number of the European Commissioners and of the policy fields. Therefore, it is difficult to observe the middle line between decreasing the debts of the Member States and applying the Stability Pact, on one side, and increasing investments in accordance with the European Central Bank planning, on the other side.

The lack of coordination in the field by the European Commission reflected by the suspense on Greece crisis in 2105 and its continuing uncertainties in 2016 - prove the wrong economic choices promoted in the EU between 2010-2014. Under the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, the acts known as the Great Economic Policy Guidelines, prepared by the direction of Economic Affairs are sent to ECOFIN and to the European Council, becoming recommendations to Member States on the basis of information submitted by them. This multilateral

13 TUE Art. 9 A par 1 & 2


surveillance has been completed with Integrated Guidelines for Employment - LDE, in the context of the adoption of an updated Lisbon strategy called Europe 2020 aiming at a close monitoring of the Member State policies and the respect of the direction to be followed for their coordination. In spite of a dramatic economic failure, the involvement of EU is focusing on reducing labor costs, as facilitator dismissals, increasing the working time of employees, notwithstanding the Euro is overvalued in a number of countries - Greece, France, Finland. In a sum, negative effects on competitiveness are still consistent with the Commission working program.14 The Commission did not attempt to rebalance the ratio of force between a highly mobile capital, constantly seeking to invest outside Europe for low salary reasons, and a local labor force, in need of more offer. As far as the Member States' budgetary instruments are overviewed by the Commission through the European Semester, the recourse to monetary policy or budgetary intervention demand adjustment for lowering the cost of labor.15 Given the fact that Germany would not accept flexible compliance obligations undertaken by Member States on the budgetary issues, it is unlikely that the Union would experience economic recovery on short term.

As regards the Euro, we think that Europe has done what it was easier but left unanswered questions on the difficult questions related to the economic coordination.16 Even the industrial policy is included amongst the current Commission’s priorities; we found it as a contradiction with a view to all the major decision-makings undertaken in this sector after 1990 which finally lead to the massive deindustrialization of Europe. To have a better understanding of the contemporary problems, perhaps it would be useful to remind some historical facts related to the adoption of Euro which underline the shortages in this matter caused by inflexible political action. In the difficult context of the process of unification, Germany has better exploited the advantage of establishing a single currency - the Euro which prohibited its European neighbors to do proceed to devaluations of their currency. In fact, the current German competitiveness rooted in the reforms engaged by Chancellor G. Schroder at the end of the last century who applied a competitive devaluation by increasing the VAT and decreasing taxes on businesses, while French companies, subject to constraints related to the adoption of the weekly working time of 35 hours in 2001, were forced to reduce investment or to relocate outside Europe.17 Relocations have affected all the European states, especially France, which in the mid-70s at the of the so-called Trente Glorieuses era, had effective industrial champions in almost all the top fields - aviation, energy, etc, while Germany has reaped the fruit of an intelligent industrial policy geared towards exportations. (Industry in this country is 22% of GDP and in France is 11% GDP). Therefore, could the competitiveness problems facing Europe today be explained by the consequences of deindustrialization in the aftermath of the Single European Act, which saw the

14 Catherine Delaume, www.catherinedelaume.fr, mai 2016 15 Labor Law in France was adopted cf. Constitutional Article 49.3 in order to avoid motion of

censure but was welcomed by European Commissioners 16 Bruno Le Maire, Speech, 9 May 2016 17 Eric Zemmour, Le Suicide français, Paris, Albin Michel, 2014, p. 461.


famous names of the European industry (Alsthom, Renault) yielding shares of American or Indian capital while main concern of the Commission was to ensure compliance to free competition in Europe. These are legitimate questions of the European citizens who perceive European action to the benefit of multinational companies but detrimental to small national industries. We repeat, there just interrogations not final diagnosis, but what we suggest is that European unemployment should require attentive and coherent treatment.18

II.2. Europe at the crossroads: the migratory crisis Starting with the second semester of 2015, challenges of the economic crisis

have been shadowed by the sudden change in intensity and direction of the migration flows to Europe. Although the migratory crisis began to pose a challenge for a number of countries in Southern Europe long before 2015, it was observed a relative lack of involvement of the European institutions. Consequently, the states affected by this phenomenon reacted alone or by peer pressure.19 It has become clear by then that the rules on Schengen are not functioning any longer. However, as in the case of economic crisis, European leaders were reluctant to openly address the overall specific problems, systematically delaying to involve themselves in identifying the causes of massive migration which in fact started after the Ar.ab Spring of 2011. The Schengen area created initially to allow streamlining the movement of goods within the European Communities, has acquired, following the historic enlargement of EU to the East, a more pronounced political character, in the context where the Member States response capacity were uneven as far specific rules were concerned. Other inconsistencies proceed from the overall outlook on Schengen: Greece, the most exposed state to migration has no continuity borders with the other member states of this area. Also, a European asylum procedure is missing, although long before the peak of the crisis was reached, it was generally admitted by the experts that the Dublin Regulation is already exceeded.20

Strictly speaking, the refugee crisis would not have known the same scale if Europe acted coherently ex ante. Instead, the Union is facing a dramatic situation resulting not only from its inability to manage migration flows from the southern flank of the Mediterranean, but from the absence of a political vision to predict and address the migration causes both at economic and geostrategic level. The effect consists in the deterioration of the internal security as a whole as well as of almost each Member State. Although not all states are equally affected by these phenomena unpredictable and uncontrollable, long-term threats of this kind will equally involve all of them. Given the fact that they were not provided for the return of refugees, the successive missions organized by the EU - Mare Nostrum, Triton, Sophia, have shown their limits. Nor the European Agenda on migration presented in 2015 by the European Commission or the system of relocation

18 Bertrand Rothe, 1er juillet 1987: et l’Europe déviant allemande, Paris, www.marianne.net,

30 aout 2015. 19 Agreement on receiving migrants signed by Italy and France. 20 Gérard – François Dumont, Migrants. La fermeture de la route des Balkans pourrait

apporter plus de problèmes que de solutions, Atlantico.fr, 8 mars 2016


according to art. 78 par 3 TFEU, aimed at installing hotspots in Italy and Greece have not proved to be successful.

Meanwhile, the refugee crisis revealed the fractures existing between East and West, raising questions on the idea of the effective European solidarity. The responsibilities of the current impasse are with both Europe of 15 states having joined EU after 2000. Consequently, Europe's credibility is in danger. In this regard, we note that the successful project of the continuing EU enlargement which should give more power to the whole Europe is in a sharp loss of speed.

The danger of implosion of the Schengen Area would induce the restoring of the internal borders and the dramatic fall in economic benefits arising from a Europe of free movement of goods and people. In this context, there two possible scenarios could occur: 1. the introduction of unilateral measures by some countries facing most of refugees flux which in time would lead to the renunciation of the Schengen provisions, and, and 2. The extension of border controls at 2 years in accordance with art. 26 of the Schengen Convention - Border Code, with respect to the specific procedure recommended when one or more Member are allowed to restore border controls. Skepticism concerning the settlement of the refugees also comes out from the frequent intervention of several international high representatives working with the United Nations, the European Commission, who, without relying on a correct analysis believe that Europe cannot develop an economic growth without importing a massive migration.21 We are of the opinion that the making of a common migration policy should start from creating an integrated European capacity together with prevention strengthening which primarily involves a strict border control inputs and outputs in the Schengen area not only to nationals of third countries but also of the European member states.22

Without evoking here the political developments on migration, it is useful to evaluate the issues based on the viability of the EU-Turkey Agreement concluded on 18 March 2016 and considered as a last chance for blocking migration to Europe. But the price of this agreement- short stay visas liberalization with Turkey is contested by a large majority of European citizens and political deciders. A wiser approach in their opinion has to set up a considerable strengthening of the border control, an aggressive policy against trafficking networks, common rules for refugees and a redefinition of the Schengen Area. Obviously, failure to establish a common European view has placed Turkey in a situation of force. In fact EU is facing, on the one hand, a radicalized Turkey led by a highly pragmatic president and, on the other side, a commitment for a decision which may have consequences difficult to be managed by the national governments in relation to its own European citizens fearing an islamization of Europe. This agreement was hard to be imagined 10 years ago, when the French Constitution (Article 85 – 5) was amended with a view to submit to referendum any future requirement of a country to accede the EU. An explanation of the fact

21 Assemblee nationale, Commission pour les affaires europeennes, Compte rendu, 11 mai

2016. 22 Rapport d’information no. 499 sur la reforme de l’espace Schengen et la crise des refugies,

Senat français, 24 mars 2016.


that Turkey has managed to negotiate from a certain position of power lies with the fact that EU is less attractive for a country who would like to be again a great Eurasian power and well placed in an more favorable international balance equation than in 2003 when it has been offered to accession negotiations.

II.3. An increased Euro-scepticism As far as Europe destroys jobs by transferring mainly for the advantage of

extremely low labor costs, debates on growth, competitiveness, high public deficit are abstract notions for the people. On the contrary, euro-skepticism becomes a reality when there are not encouraging signs of better economic perspective. The vote in favor of right or left extreme parties who, besides populism, have in common the reject of Europe is easy to be explained whether citizens feel unprotected. As far as two Europe exist, one of the free trade, the other of the economic policy they cannot be sustained any longer. Given that two major achievements of the EU - the Euro and the Schengen area - are now strongly criticized by the European citizens, an increase in Euro - skepticism put in danger the European project.23

The internal crisis of the Member States derives from the lack of capacity of the traditional political parties to focus and find appropriate solutions upon the real problems of the citizens’ life. Instead of conceive and put in practice a more coherent and adapted vision, they have been trying to preserve their power around a rigid two-party system. In this way, the right and left parties all over Europe understand to protect themselves against the far right parties by forming political barriers or using advantageous provisions, mainly, proportional representation. Therefore, although they gained important number of votes, the anti-European parties, such as National Front in France, Vlamme Belang, in Belgium, were systematically prevented from getting access to power. The status quo has been preserved, but for how long? In these circumstances, confusion is not completely eliminated; on the contrary, as long as EU is not solving its problems, it may lead any time to an increased radicalization. In this respect, the most recent examples are the presidential elections in Austria, where Norbert Hofer, the candidate supported by FOP, a party that had governed during the period 2002 - 2006, but whose leader J Haider was blamed by the Heads of State and European government, lost the presidential race to a difference of 31 000 votes and the referendum on Agreement Treaty EU-Ukraine rejection in Holland.24

As far as migration is concerned, the rise of populism has found an ideal ground. Contrary opinions on sensitive European topics, expressed by different political parties, have feed the speeches of the Europe’s adversaries. Terrorism is another issue which proves Europe remains unprepared to ensure security inside its borders. In the next period, the problem is to find out to what extent European

23 Yves Pascouau, „L’espace Schengen face aux crises: la tentation des frontières”, Questions

européennes, no. 392, Fondation Robert Schumann, 17 mai 2016. 24 Jean Sevillia, Autriche: Le laboratoire de l’avenir, www.lefigaro.fr, 24 mai 2016. In the first

case, In this case, there were suspicions for the use of postal voting a less non-transparent procedure.


leaders understood the warnings given by the recent legislative or public consultations claiming more action and visibility.25

We believe that a continuation at of the already mentioned mistakes both at European and domestic level cannot be in the benefit of EU citizens’ and for the future of a strong project. Consequently, it would be recommended to restart a strengthening dialogue with the civil societies of the Member States, not only with democracies in EU’s neighborhood. The main problem stems from the soft policy promoted by Brussels which sometimes appears as a communication exercise coordination of common policies.26

Conclusions Giving up the Constitutional Treaty following the referendums in France and

Holland, and achieving unconvincing institutional review in the Treaty of Lisbon, remain sensitive issues for European citizens because taking decisions without consulting them will not represent an added value for the European construction. We appreciate that Europe urgently need a strong overhaul, aiming at revitalize the Franco - German driving force given the fact that the two founding countries were at the base of the European construction.

Because it could not respond adequately to the crisis in place, today EU means for most of its citizens, crisis, extremism, emergency to close borders. Above all, Europe has seemed powerless regarding economy and migration. Thus, the parties considered as right extreme either from France, Austria or United Kingdom, win sympathy, primarily due to blockage of ideas in Brussels inducing hesitant or wrong approach to national governments. Because unemployment and refugees flux is causing a feeling of insecurity, much of the European citizens see the Union as being unable protect them. Moreover, for them, Europe risks to represent the organization raising questions of preserving the identity of sovereign nations, as long as a certain political vision would not be conferred to pragmatic projects.27

Facing to migration and economy failure, EU looks to be divided and uncertain, because the institutional system remained almost the same which operated in a Community of 6 members. Working under new inefficient procedures, Union has tried to resolve crises using primarily the intergovernmental dimension, especially the European Council meeting at an increased frequency since 2009.28 A stronger Union should be able to take more in consideration the challenges of the sovereignties of the member states and try together with them to work upon a consolidated political vision.

25 Gerard- Francois Dumont, „L’UE a rebours de ses principes”, La revue geopolitique, Paris,

14 janvier 2016. 26 Jan – Werner Muller, Populists and technocrats in Europe’s Fragmented Democracies,

www.worldpoliticsreview.com, May 31, 2016 . 27 Christophe Bouillaud, Une Europe»forte, prospère, démocratique et unie: et si la montée

des populismes que Barack Obama veut stopper était en fait due a autre chose que le chômage ou la crise des migrants www.atlantico.fr, 26 avril 2016.

28 Cristian Caspar, „L Allemagne, la France et l Europe”, Mouvement européen, Paris, 17 avril 2016.


REFERENCES Books Cayes, Sarah, (2015), Thieves of the State, Why corruption Threatens Global

Security, W.W. Norton / Company, New Zork, London. Quermonne, Jean, (2015), L’Europe en quête de légitimité, Presses de

Sciences Po, Paris. Zemmour Eric, (2014), Le Sucide francais, Paris, Albin Michel. Senat francais, Rapport d’information no. 499 sur la reforme de l’espace

Schengen et la crise des refugies, 24 mars 2016. Speeches, interventions Seguin, Philippe, (1991), Speech, National Assembly, France. European Council, (2001), Laeken Declaration. D Estaing Valery Giscard, (2002), Speech, European Convention. Idem, (2002), Speech on the occasion of the opening of the European

Convention. Hollande Francois, (2013), „Interview”, Le Figaro. Le Maire Bruno, (2016), Speech. Assemblee nationale, (2016), Commission pour les affaires europeennes,

Compte rendu. Articles Bossuat, Gérard, (2005), Histoire d’une référence. La référence aux

héritages spirituels dans la Constitution européenne, Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps, Paris, vol. V, No.1, p. 68 / 82.

Bouillaud, Christophe, (2016), Une Europe»forte, prospère, démocratique et unie: et si la montée des populismes que Barack Obama veut stopper était en fait due a autre chose que le chômage ou la crise des migrants www.atlantico.fr, 26 avril.

Caspar, Cristian, (2016), L’Allemagne, la France et l’Europe, Mouvement européen, Paris.

Delaume, Catherine, (2016), www.catgerinedelaume.fr. Dumont, Gérard – François, „Migrants. La fermeture de la route des Balkans

pourrait apporter plus de problèmes que de solutions”, Atlantico.fr, 8 mars 2016 Idem, (2016), „L’UE a rebours de ses principes”, La revue géopolitique,

Paris. Idem, (2016), Europe forte prospère et démocratique et unie et montée des

populismes que veut stopper Barrack Obama était en fait due autre chose que, www.atlantico.fr

Marga, Andrei, (2016), www.cotidianul.ro. Pascouau, Yves, (2016), „L’espace Schengen face aux crises: la tentation des

frontières”, Questions européennes, no. 392, Fondation Robert Schumann, 17 mai. Rothe, Bertrand, (2015), 1 er juillet 1987: et l’Europe déviant allemande,

Paris, Marianne. Sevillia, Jean, (2016), Autriche. Le laboratoire de l'avenir, www.lefigaro.fr,

24 mai 2016.


TTHHEE MMIIGGRRAATTOORRYY MMOOVVEEMMEENNTT OOFF TTHHEE PPOOPPUULLAATTIIOONN AANNDD TTHHEE LLAABBOOUURR FFOORRCCEE IINN TTHHEE RROOMMAANNIIAANN RRUURRAALL AARREEAA

FFlloorreennttiinnaa BBuurrllaaccuu

[email protected] Abstract: The main reason for the migration from rural to urban areas

after 1990 is the absence of jobs and the low salaries in the villages. Another cause of this phenomenon is the lack of utilities and decent living conditions in the rural areas, and also the absence of economic opportunities.

Keywords: Migratory movement of the population, Labour force,

Romanian rural area. The migration of the rural population The concept of migration has been defined by many authors in a variety of

ways. Some authors use the word migration strictly referring only to permanent relocation of residence.1

Mangalam considers a person as migrant when he or she decides to leave, based on a hierarchy of decisional values, to a different geographical region.2

For Bogue migration refers to the relocation of residence, an action involving a change of membership from a community to another, and the readjustment of the migrant to the new community.3

Although it is often made the distinction between permanent and temporary moves, most researchers tend to associate migration with the permanent move of a person or a community from a geographical region to another, action preceded by decision-making on the part of the migrants (Qian 1996).4

Temporary migration is the departure of a person from one place to another with the intention to return to the places of origin after a period of time, and staying in these places for a longer time.5

The migration of the rural population has experienced large swings in the last forty years, affecting the normal development of the human resources in the rural areas. Population displacement occurred mostly from villages to cities, which is an objective socio-economic process which has made its presence felt in most countries of the world, not only in Romania. This phenomenon of migration

PhD. student at The Bucharest University of Economic Studies. 1 Berhanu Abeje, The Rural-urban Nexus in Migration and Livelihoods Diversification: A

Case Study of East Esté Wereda and Bahir Dar Town, Amhara Region, African Books Collective, 2012, p. 11.

2 Ibidem. 3 Ibidem. 4 Ibidem. 5 Ibidem.


from rural to urban areas has led to increasing urbanization and the overall development of the countries concerned.6

The migration of the rural population to urban areas has implications for gender and age structure of the population who stayed to work and live in villages.7

Because since 1990 the law on relocation from one place to another has changed it was registered a large increase in the migration from rural to urban. For example, only in 1990 became city dwellers by relocating to the city 559.000 people. But in the following years the migration from villages to cities began to decline due to the lack of jobs in the urban areas, recording lately a trend of reverse migration from cities to villages.8

Some researchers argue that migration is the result of the considerable differences between the conditions in the rural and urban areas, we mention here the larger wages and the superior technological equipment of the city, but it must be taken into account also the wave of layoffs in the industry.9

While the trend of departures from villages to cities still maintains dominance in the internal migration, people moving from cities to villages are growing in numbers.10

The migration of the population has not been in a steady growth trend, it manifested with varying degrees of intensity from one period to another. Most people who have moved took this step in 1990, when 88% settled in towns and cities. After this considerable amplification of the migration from rural to urban, growth which was caused by the lifting of the ban on setting the residence in the cities, the volume of the territorial mobility decreased.11

Studying the data from the table on The structure of the internal urban and rural migration flows caused by relocation presented in the second part of this study, where statistical data taken from the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) are presented, we see that there was an exodus of people leaving from rural to urban areas, the figures recorded are the following: in 1990 was registered the departure of 549.132 people, in 1991 moved 132.360 people, and 1992 – 114.954 people.

This trend recorded in the first three years after 1989 has not been maintained in the coming years, the figures of the migration from rural to urban decreased, and then grew again, registering a fluctuation from year to year.

In the table mentioned above we can observe that in terms of urban-rural migration recent years have seen a clear increase in the number of people who left town to settle in villages. The figures in the statistics are the following: in 2009 – 96.513 people, in 2010 – 133.052 people, in 2011 – 97.013 people, in 2012 – 118.383 people, 2013 – 102.710 people and last year 2014 – 110.658 people.

6 Palicica Laura-Ioana, Palicica Maria, Human resources and workforce training in rural

areas, University Horizons Publishing, Timisoara, 2005, p. 112. 7 Ibidem. 8 Ibidem. 9 Miftode Vasile, Migration and urban development, Junimea Publishing, Iasi, 1978, pp. 106-110. 10 Palicica Laura-Ioana, Palicica Maria, cited works, p. 112. 11 Ibidem., pp. 112-113.


The trend of reverse migration from cities to villages could be explained by the retirement of people who left the rural area decades ago to work in the city or by the massive layoffs that occurred in the Romanian industry.

Some retirees prefer to retreat in the countryside at their parental home after having worked a lifetime to the city, and let their children, who are now adults, to live in their apartments from the urban areas.

Also to compensate for the lack of a salary the unemployed choose to return to villages, where at least they can do subsistence farming that can provide their daily food.

Another category consists of the rural emigrants who left to work abroad to raise money. They choose to return to Romania and with their saved money they build houses and start businesses in the households of their parents and with their lands.

Pollution could be considered another cause of the migration from cities to villages. People try to escape the high level of pollution from the urban areas and live a healthier life by consuming natural products from their household.

The increase of the number of those working in agriculture is closely linked to the decrease in the number of people employed in other sectors in the urban areas. This migration to native lands favours the urban areas, which are beset by the massive unjustified inflows of people.12

The engagement of those who have returned to villages in private activities, although it appears to have positive effects, in the long run may prove to be just the opposite. Thus, in the countryside there will be a large and low-skilled labour force which will not have the technical resources necessary to undertake the activities in the agricultural branch. Also, another problem could be that the size of the households and arable land is too small for practicing a performance agricultural activity.13

Another category of migrant population, which is not very significant in numbers, is made up of people who have left the rural area to live in the urban area, people who were unsuccessful or maybe not satisfied with life in the city. They chose to return and settle in the countryside, not in the villages of origin, but in other villages perceived as new rural areas. These new rural areas don’t have a high population density, are isolated from urban areas and don’t have a great agricultural potential.14

Although lately there is a trend of return of the population to villages, it is secondary, the main migration that occurs in the rural areas is directed from villages to cities or to other countries.

The migration from the rural areas isn’t a scourge that affects only Romania, these movements occur around the globe, in most countries. The reasons of the migration of population from villages to cities are numerous, but the main issue

12 Ibidem., p. 114. 13 Ibidem. 14 Bilsborrow Richard E., Rural Poverty, Migration, and the Environment in Developing

Countries: Three Case Studies, World Bank Publications, 1992, p. 7.


that leads to making such a decision is that in urban areas are concentrated several types of resources.15

The differences between villages and cities in terms of economic opportunities stimulate migration. The benefits of this migratory movement are not only for the people migrating, the advantages affect in a positive way the households in rural areas through the economic support granted by the migrant to the family of origin.16

Migration is a very important economic strategy adopted by rural households to strengthen their financial security by diversifying the sources of income, including, in such situations, the support from family members who have left the village.17

Rural households can improve their economic situation through the money they receive from family members that work in the city or abroad, they earn there more than they would earn in the region from which they come from.18

In this study we start from the assumption that the migration of the rural population has as its main cause the lack of jobs and the low salaries from the villages. We are trying to demonstrate that there is a correlation between the migration of the rural population and unemployment.

In the pages below we talk about the labour force in rural areas, which are the current problems it faces and what would be the solutions to resolve this crisis.

The labour force in rural areas After 1990 there were significant changes in the socio-economic structure of

the rural population. These changes relate to the reduction of the active population and the employed (occupied) population due to structural modifications suffered by the rural population.19

The transformations that occurred affected the existing structure of the population by gender, ages, living environments, level of education, they have led to the reduction of the level of participation in the economic activity and to the emergence of the unoccupied population. Due to the economic and social changes of the 90s there have been modifications in the economic structure of the active people, by industry, by occupation and by their professional status.20

In the structure of the inactive population have occurred changes that have had economic and social effects, we mention here the increasing number of retirees and the decreasing number of children, illustrating the trends of aging population.21

The living environment and gender structure of the active population reveals that the percentage of the active population is higher in urban areas than in rural

15 White Michael J., International Handbook of Migration and Population Distribution, Springer, 2015, p. 452.

16 Ibidem. 17 Ibidem. 18 Ibidem. 19 Palicica Laura-Ioana, Palicica Maria, cited works, p. 140. 20 Ibidem. 21 Ibidem.


areas, urban active population representing 55.45% of the total, the share of males is higher in the active population in the rural areas. It is interesting that there has been a reversal of the situation, prior to 1990 the rural population had a greater share in the active population, and the percentage of the female active population in the villages exceeded the one of active women in the cities.22

In terms of number of employees in the rural areas have increased by nearly one-third the households without employees, this is the effect of the restructuring that took place in the Romanian economy during 1992-2002.23

After 1990 because of some negative phenomena (economic, social, political) and the destruction process of the national industry began a reverse change of the employed population structure, occupied population returned to agriculture due to poverty.24

Between 1990 and 2000, the reduction of the number of people employed in industry and construction has increased the share of persons active in agriculture from 28.6% to 41.1%.25

According to statistics rural unemployment is recorded mainly in men (65.6%) and the unemployed people are concentrated in urban areas. The female active population unemployment rate is lower than it is in males, both in total and on living environments.26

In 1992 the unemployment rate was higher in rural than in urban areas, in 2002 the situation is reversed, the city unemployment rate is 1.5 percentage points higher.27

Statistics show that more than half of the unemployed in rural areas do not benefit or do not benefit anymore of any form of social protection.28

22 Ibidem., pp. 140-142. 23 Ibidem., p. 144. 24 Ibidem., p. 148. 25 Ibidem. 26 Ibidem., p. 164. 27 Ibidem., p. 165. 28 Ibidem., p. 166.


The migratory movement of the population in the Romanian rural area in statistical data

The structure of the internal urban and rural migration flows caused by relocati1

Internal migration flows

Years

Year 1990 Year 1991 Year 1992 Year 1993 Year 1994 Year 1995 Year 1996 Year 1997 Year 1998 Year 1999 Year 2000 Year 2001

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

MU: Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

From rural to urban

549132 132360 114954 84063 81327 72710 72267 68491 60620 57986 47693 69837

From rural to rural 66958 50873 66757 60084 68050 80948 71710 77466 65064 59955 56262 56939

From urban to rural

27710 26571 40253 35153 48983 60210 68584 81079 78618 84606 82631 79327

Continous The structure of the internal urban and rural migration flows caused by relocati

Internal migration flows

Years

Year 2002 Year 2003 Year 2004 Year 2005 Year 2006 Year 2007 Year 2008 Year 2009 Year 2010 Year 2011 Year 2012 Year 2013 Year 2014

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24


Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

From rural to urban 71928 76797 77941 60195 75275 80235 78671 70246 96201 66784 74470 74023 78411

From rural to rural 69394 64070 77950 55032 64001 80253 78478 67306 89441 63594 72620 65453 71063

From urban to rural

96624 100282 117495 80732 93924 118237 124828 96513 133052 97013 118383 102710 110658

Data source: National Institute of Statistics.

1 http://statistici.insse.ro/shop/


In the statistical survey from above, which only takes into account internal migration, NIS used the data on persons arriving residing and persons who left the residence.

Last update: 11-05-2016.2

2 Ibidem.


Regarding the structure of the internal urban and rural migration flows caused by relocation, as can be seen from the above chart, the highest value was recorded in the migration from rural to urban areas in 1990 – 549.132 of people, while the lowest was recorded in 2000 – 47.693 people. In the migration from rural to rural the maximum value was 89.441 people in 2010, and the lowest – 50.873 people in 1991. The population movement from urban to rural achieved the maximum figure in 2010 – 133.052 people and the minimum was recorded in 1991 – 26.571 people.

The correlation coefficients Correlation expresses in numerical form the degree of association between

variables. Two variables are associated when the behaviour of one is related to the behaviour of the other, in other words, if they are not independent. Two variables are independent if modifying one variable has no effect on the values of the other variable. (Gibbons, 1993).1

A very important aspect, which many ignore, is that we cannot establish causal links from correlational studies. From correlations we cannot make causal inferences, we cannot determine the cause and the effect. Correlational studies allow the determination of the intensity and the meaning of a link between variables, but not the establishment of the relation cause – effect.2

The relations between two variables are studied under two categories of correlation indices, parametric correlation indices and nonparametric correlation indices, depending on the variables, if they are fulfilling or not the management requirements of the parametric statistics.3

Spearman correlation coefficient is a coefficient based on ranking, which is not influenced by the representativeness of the average, and is generally used when the research group is small (less than 30 cases), or when at least one of the variables does not meet the conditions of the management of the parametric tests. This indicator is commonly used in social and human sciences, especially when the bivariate correlation coefficient must be calculated and the data is not normally distributed for at least one variable. The coefficient transforms the original scores into ranks and analyzes the relationship between them. In the correlational studies it is insufficient obtaining the correlation coefficient to reject or not the null hypothesis. We also need the materiality threshold that shows what chances we have that the indicator obtained to arise from sampling errors. We can accept the significance of this indicator and reject the null hypothesis, only if this chance is less than 5% and the threshold of significance is smaller than 0.05.4

Kendall correlation coefficient is a correlation coefficient for nonparametric data, which is more accurate than the Spearman coefficient for the variables that are situated in a real way on a purely ordinal level. The procedures for calculating this coefficient differ, but all rely on counting the inversions (where an element

1 Opariuc-Dan Cristian, 2011, Applied Statistics in Social and Human Sciences. Analysis of

Associations and Statistical Differences, Constanţa, p. 17. 2 Ibidem., p. 18. 3 Ibidem. 4 Ibidem., pp. 19-23.


that has a higher ranking for a variable, stands in front of an element with a lower rank, the data being ordered by the other variable) and their opposite, called proversions (Vasilescu, 1992). This correlation coefficient may be used provided that both variables are ordinal or one variable is ordinal and the other is scalar. Kendall coefficient is a directional coefficient having the same interpretative meaning as the Spearman coefficient.5

The Bravais - Pearson correlation coefficient is one of the most representative measures of the relationship between two variables. With this parametric correlation coefficient we can analyze the linear relationship between the results obtained following the management of two completely different instruments. It doesn’t matter that an instrument has 20 items and another has 2000 items, that a scale has a theoretical amplitude between 0 and 20 points, and the other between 23 and 190 points. This correlation coefficient is a directional coefficient and may range between -1 and +1, with a meaning analogous to the Spearman correlation coefficient or any directional coefficient.6

5 Ibidem., pp. 26-35. 6 Ibidem., pp. 64 -73.


The correlation between the number of resident departures and the unemployed ILO

The resident departures and the unemployed ILO by area of residence and age groups1

Indicators Area of

residence Age groups

Years

Year 1996 Year 1997 Year 1998 Year 1999 Year

2000 Year 2001 Year 2002

Year 2003

Year 2004


Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Resident departure Rural Total 143977 145957 125684 117941 103955 126776 141322 140867 155891

Unemployed ILO Rural Total 240663 204073 195640 198218 182727 163844 264334 202698 281298

Indicators Area of residence Age groups

Years

Year 2005 Year 2006 Year 2007 Year 2008 Year 2009 Year 2010

Year 2011

Year 2012 Year 2013

Year 2014


Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Resident departure Rural Total 115227 139276 160488 157149 137552 185642 130378 147090 139476 149474

Unemployed ILO Rural Total 232693 246881 222729 212094 238060 208601 225555 208182 217999 219832

1 Data source: National Institute of Statistics.


We associated in the table above the statistics on resident departures with those showing the number of unemployed ILO because we are trying to demonstrate that there is a link between the two series of data. We took the statistical data from the existing tables on the website of the National Institute of Statistics for the years 1996 - 2014 and we put them together in an attempt to demonstrate the link between migration and the number of unemployed people. Although there is a pretty big difference between the number of people leaving the residence and the unemployed, we hope to prove through appropriate research methods the degree of association between the two variables.

The results of the correlation between the number of unemployed people and the resident departures after we analyzed the data with three correlation coefficients Spearman, Kendall and Pearson are the following:

Descriptive Statistics Mean Std. Deviation N

Someri 219269.53 27776.634 19 Plecari 140216.95 18440.948 19

Correlations Someri Plecari

Someri Pearson Correlation 1 .304 Sig. (2-tailed) .205


N 19 19 Plecari Pearson Correlation .304 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .205 N 19 19

Correlations Someri Plecari

Kendall's tau_b Someri Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .228 Sig. (2-tailed) . .172 N 19 19

Plecari Correlation Coefficient .228 1.000 Sig. (2-tailed) .172 . N 19 19

Spearman's rho Someri Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .305 Sig. (2-tailed) . .204 N 19 19

Plecari Correlation Coefficient .305 1.000 Sig. (2-tailed) .204 . N 19 19

The data obtained from the analysis performed with the Pearson coefficient shows that between the number of unemployed people and the number of resident departures there is a low to moderate link, because the resulting value is .304. We know that as closer the value of the coefficient is to 1 (negative or positive) it indicates a stronger relationship, and in our case the result doesn’t approaches to 1, resulting that the link is not strong. Given that our threshold of significance is .205, which is higher than 0.05 we can consider the test as insignificant, since there isn’t a strong association between the two variables.

Regarding the interpretation of the results achieved with the Kendall coefficient we can conclude that even here there isn’t a strong link between the variables, since we obtained the value of .228, and the materiality is .172 which is greater than 0.05.

The obtained data with the Spearman correlation coefficient reveal to us through the value of .305 that there isn’t a strong link between variables, and the materiality of .204 shows us that the test is not significant because it is greater than 0.05.

The figures from all three statistical analysis with the correlation coefficients Spearman, Kendall and Pearson are positive, which means that we are dealing with a positive correlation. Because the relationship between variables is positive while one of the variables increases or decreases the other one tends to increase or decrease with it.

The results of this correlation analysis should be treated with caution, as they may be false, because before 2005 there may have been breaks in the data series, and these breaks adversely affect the correlation results.


The correlation between the number of unemployed ILO and temporary emigrants

The number of unemployed ILO and temporary emigrants by

age groups and area of residence1

Indicators Age groups

Area of residence

Periods

Year 2012 Year 2013 Year 2014


Number of people

Number of people

Number of people

Number of unemployed people ILO

Total Rural 208182 217999 219832

Number of temporary emigrants

Total Rural 80200 71860 809


In the above table we have joined two statistical variables taken from the NIS

data series, namely the number of unemployed ILO and temporary emigrants, in an attempt to demonstrate the link between the lack of jobs and the migration of population. Because the data series on temporary emigrants extends only over three years 2012, 2013 and 2014, we took from the other series of data, the

1 Data source: National Institute of Statistics.


unemployed ILO, only the values for the three years that we analyze. Analyzing the table we don’t perceive any evident link between the values of the two variables, the difference between the presented figures is very clear, while the trend of a string of data is upward the other is downward. Through more sophisticated statistical research methods we try to prove the existing link between the two variables and the degree of association between them.

The results of the correlation between the number of unemployed people and the temporary emigrants after we analyzed the data with the Pearson coefficient are the following:

Descriptive Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N Someri 215337.6667 6264.39513 3 Emigranti 50956.3333 43628.60507 3

Correlations

Someri Emigranti Someri Pearson Correlation 1 -.693

Sig. (2-tailed) .512 N 3 3

Emigranti Pearson Correlation -.693 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .512 N 3 3

The data obtained from the analysis performed with the Pearson coefficient

shows that between the number of unemployed people and the number of temporary emigrants there is a moderate link, because the resulting value is -.693, being at the same time a negative value. The negative correlation means that while one of the variables increases the other decreases and vice versa. Given that our threshold of significance is .512, which is higher than 0.05, we can consider this test as insignificant, since there isn’t a strong association between the two variables.

The results of this correlation analysis should be treated with caution, as they may be incorrect due to human errors.

Conclusions After 1990 in our country occurred the deindustrialization, whose first

victims were the human resources. The people who were employed in these enterprises ended up being fired by the new owners and filled the ranks of the unemployed population. The CAPs and the IASs had a similar fate, they were closed letting the rural population without jobs.

The changes that have occurred after the ’90 affected in a decisive way the rural population, namely, the active population and the employed population decreased in numbers. The transition period brought with it the decrease of the participation in the economic activity and the emergence of the unoccupied population.


The percentage of the active population is lower in rural than in urban areas. Meanwhile inactive population underwent serious changes due to the increasing number of retirees and the decreasing number of children in villages, the population in the rural areas is in an advanced process of aging.

The number of employees in the rural area is continuously decreasing due to the restructuring and the lack of jobs. Reducing the number of people employed in industry and constructions has increased the number of people active in agriculture. The unemployment in rural areas is rather masked because unemployed people are included in the population occupied in agriculture.

The main results obtained from the analysis of the statistical data with the correlation coefficients show that there isn’t a strong link between the unemployed and the resident departures or between the unemployed and the temporary emigrants.

The results of these correlation analysis should be treated with caution, as they may be false because before 2005 there may have been breaks in the data series, and these breaks adversely affect the correlation results.

We must also take into account that indicators from the period 2008 - 2012 are not relevant because in that time occurred the economic crisis that affected Romania, and the years of crisis cannot be taken as a yardstick.

Although the correlation analysis shows that there isn’t a strong link between rural migration and unemployment, we believe that the two phenomena are linked closely, because the lack of jobs leads to the migration of the active population in search of a job and a decent wage.

REFERENCES Berhanu Abeje, (2012), The Rural-urban Nexus in Migration and

Livelihoods Diversification: A Case Study of East Esté Wereda and Bahir Dar Town, Amhara Region, African Books Collective.

Bilsborrow Richard E., (1992), Rural Poverty, Migration, and the Environment in Developing Countries: Three Case Studies, World Bank Publications.

Gibbons Jean Dickinson, (1993), Nonparametric Measures of Association, Iowa: Sage Publications, Inc. Vol. 07 – 091. 9780803946644.

Miftode Vasile, (1978), Migration and urban development, Iaşi, Junimea Publishing House.

Opariuc-Dan Cristian, (2011), Applied Statistics in Social and Human Sciences. Analysis of Associations and Statistical Differences, Constanţa, August.

Palicica Laura-Ioana, Palicica Maria, (2005), Human Resources and Workforce Training in Rural Areas, Timişoara, University Horizons Publishing.

Vasilescu Ilie Puiu, (1992), Computerized Statistics for the Sciences about Man, Bucharest: Military.

White Michael J., (2015), International Handbook of Migration and Population Distribution, Springer.

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